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. . . waiting :it the church 
because the cutest boy in the neighborhood] play- 
ing "groom" to her "bride," walked out on her — 
and Uild her why. Lucky little Edna, to learn so 
young, that halitosis (bad breath) is the fault 
unpardonable. Later in life, radiant, beautiful, 
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to make her breath agreeable. 

How's your breath? 
The insidious thing about halitosis (bad breath) 
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needlessly. That goes for you, too. 



Why take the chance: Why guess? Use Listerine 
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Why don't you acquire this delightful mouth 
freshening habit? It pays rich dividends in popu- 
larity. Lambert Pharmacai. Co., St. Louis, Mo. 

fur Halitosis use LISTERINE 



1 



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Volume XXI Number 6 

AUGUST, 1938 
SCIENCE-FICTION A Street & Smi,h Publico,!on 

Title Reolstered U. 8. Patent Office 

THIS MAGAZINE CONTAINS NEW STORIES ONLY. NO REPRINTS ARE USED. 

Complete Novelettes: 

HELL SHIP Arthur J. Burks 6 

Josh i/cNab, good Scots engineer, finds himself up against a cracked rotor-shaft 
and a bull-headed skipper — aboard the Spaceship Arachnel 

"WHO GOES THERE?" Don A. Stuart 60 

Is that your best friend ■W'hle Hdu—ar a nV«/»'» imitation, bred of an alien 
world 1 WHO GOES THERE f 

Short Stories: 

JASON COMES HOME A. B. L Macfadyen, Jr. 28 

A boy sailed out — trapped in an unmanned spaceship. A man sailed buck, years 
later, to wipe the green scum of life from all Earth 

RESILIENT PLANET Warner van Lome 48 

A man is bnfjled iiv the problem of fuel — when the entire planet — machines, build- 
ings, even people — is mode of rubber! 

THE TERRIBLE SENSE Calvin Peregoy 99 

Not sight — nor hearing, guile, nor touch, nor taste — but he learned through it 

the tyranny of Bound 1 

ASTEROID PIRATES Royal S. Heckman 112 

Concerning the highly intelligent and completely bullet-proof Saturnian Apes I 

EVICTION BY ISOTHERM Malcolm Jameson 134 

When the weatherman can make his predictions come trite, he becomes a danger- 
ous enemy 

THE DISINHERITED Henry Kuttner 146 

Is there that Watcher somewhere — -now 1 

Science Articles: 

FOOD FOR THE FIRST PLANET . . . Thomas Calvert McClary 40 

Suggesting that reaching the planets may not be half so hard as staying there / 

ORBITS, TAKE-OFFS AND LANDINGS Willy Ley 125 

An authoritative science article on how rocket-ships can and cannot plot their 

courses. 

Beaelers' Departments: 

EDITOR'S PAGE Ill 

IN TIMES TO COME 124 

The Department of Prophecy and future issues. 

THE ANALYTICAL LABORATORY 124 

With something entirely new — and of special interest. 

SCIENCE DISCUSSIONS AND BRASS TACKS 154 

The Open House of Controversy. 
Cover by Wesso. Illustrations by Binder, Coughlin, Dold, Fiatos, Orban, Thomson, Wesso. 

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Wherein Josh McNah, good Scots Engineer of the 
Spaceship Arachne, finds himself up against a cracked 
drive-rotor and a ball-headed Skipper. 



Josh McNab 
strato- 
the 5". S. 
a hair. He 



CHIEF Engineer 
made the change from 
sphere planes to 
Arachne withqut turning 
was a man for progress, was McNah. 
Other old-timers had shrugged their 
shoulders and turned up their noses hack 
when the Arachne was first lowered into 
her slip preparatory to her maiden voy- 
age. Josh had consoled himself with 
the thought that it had always been thus. 
Grizzled oldsters had always said that 
old and tried things were the best — that 
nothing new would last. Their attitude 
suited McNab, who followed his own 
star, never overlooking a chance to in- 
crease his pay and position. 

So. five years before, he'd signed on 
as Chief Engineer of the Arachne. And 
he had never had a doubt until this mo- 
ment — though even in his doubt he knew 
the answer. He'd told the skipper that 
the rotor shaft was beginning to crack. 
And the skipper, to be sure, had passed 
the report along to grasping old fuss- 
budget Martin Caperton, who owned 
the Arachne, first of a fleet that had 
grown to two hundred in five years — all 
money-makers. 

There was a slightly ironical twist in 
the fact, now. that the Arachne, first of 
the spider fleet, was the oldest of that 
fleet, and that some of the oldsters who'd 
laughed at McNab were now members 
of crews of the modern streamline jobs, 
and inclined to look down their nose?" 
at McNab because he preferred to stick 
to the safe, sane, though rather lumber- 
ing Arachne. She was due now to speed 
along her regular force-lane to Mars in 
a matter of minutes, yet Josh had heard 



nothing of a lay-over for repairs. But 
that was quite in line with Caperton poli- 
cies, too. 

"An" there be scuts that say the Scotch 
are teet!" he muttered. His Scotch dia- 
lect was broad enough to cut with a 
knife when he was aroused, or talking 
to himself. 

If repairs were to be made in the slip, 
Caperton had to pay union wages plus 
time and a hall" for overtime. If they 
were made en route — sailors had to do 
it, and they received no extra pay. 
Then, it was "for the safety of the ship", 
and plain duty. Moreover they had to 
do it if they got home again. "An" weel M 
yon Caperton kens it !" muttered Josh/*" 
McNab. 

Personally, McNab didn't care much^ 
one way or the other. The Arachne was 
as much his home as his tiny apartment 
room, where he lived frugally and alone 
and saved his money against a rainy day. 
But he knew what "gravity fever" did 
to human beings who might, just possi- 
bly, have to spend more time together, 
cooped up on the Arachne, than they 
had bargained for — and without weight, 
if the main-shaft went. But they, like 
the sailors and marines — the Caperton 
fleet was government subsidized, in 
part, and semi-military in character — 
had to stand by because they wouldn't 
he able to do anything else. It was like 
being at sea. Passengers didn't jump 
overboard and start swimming for shore 
just because their ship had to heave-to o 
for a few hours in mid-ocean and make "'' 
repairs. 

But on the Arachne it could he nasty. 
Josh, however, had done his duty with 



8 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



his usual exactness. The rest was up 
to Skipper Lee Parsons and Martin 
Caperton — the latter a pot-bellied old 
owl in shell-rim spectacles. If no stop- 
order came through, the Arachne would 
get under weigh on schedule. 

"Ye're the purrtiest thing," said Josh, 
looking the Arachne over from the rim 
of the slip, his gray eyes glistening with 
pride. "Purtier than the bonniest las- 
sie that ever coom oot o' Scutland, save 
one! If only I had the money to own 
ye!" 

He sighed, for he knew that a Chief 
Engineer's pay, even when he saved it 
all, would never get him to first base in 
such a purchase. He ran a gnarled, oil- 
grimed finger across a section of one of 
the magnesium-beryl hull plates of the 
Arachne. To Josh it was like touching 
the skin of one's best beloved — though 
Josh had almost forgotten just what that 
was like. There had been a wife once 
— Mary — but that had been long and 
long ago. After she died — Josh had 
been twenty-five then — he'd never looked 
at another woman as a man might, 
though any woman named Mary had a 
kind of claim on his heartstrings. Mc- 
Nab was now fifty. He got his enjoy- 
ment from watching the stars in the 
eyes of sweethearts and newlyweds who 
took trips, honeymoon and vacation, on 
the Arachne. It was almost like being 
young and having your own wife again. 

HE WENT INTO the hull through 
a door that opened at his touch and fell 
behind him without sound. Lord, but 
she worked pretty. Never a thing to 
rasp on the nerves of a touchy old buz- 
zard like Josh McNab — who couldn't 
stand the screech of unoiled hinges, nor 
the sound of metal against metal. 

The Arachne was perfect — except for 
the infinitesimal crack in the rotor shaft. 
Might take a little time for its effect to 
be noticed, for it was of thirty-inch 
chrome-moly steel, and might even stand 
up until the Arachne eased back into her 



slip on the return voyage. But sooner 
or later it would go. Caperton knew it, 
and had, doubtless, already figured out 
just how to save that time and a half 
for overtime. Well, that's how a man 
like Caperton got rich, he supposed. 

A leatherneck sentry saluted respect- 
fully. Josh paused and asked him how 
his kids were, and the young chap's face 
lighted like a harvest moon. 

"Fine, sir, just fine. And by the time 
we get back, if we keep to schedule, 
there'll be another one. We're expect- 
ing and praying for a girl, this time." 

That gave Josh a sort of pang, for the 
one thing he regretted out of a long, 
active life was that he had no children. 
The one that had taken his wife had 
gone away with her, and it was a sad 
thing to remember. But the Arachne 
somehow toak the place of both — the 
Arachne and her passengers. 

The crew was already at stations. 
The marines were at their sentry posts 
for the outward voyage. Josh wasn't 
sure he liked marines. They were a 
little on the bossy side, and they un- 
buttoned the collars of their tunics when 
their officers weren't around. Still, when 
you had to have order, and maybe had 
to keep it by force, they did all right. 
But the sailors, now, they were the lads. 
You always knew right where you stood 
with them. 

McNab, informed that Skipper Par- 
sons hadn't come aboard yet, made a 
round of inspection. Not that he needed 
to — not even in the Tunnel, which was 
his own special stamping ground, where 
his black gang enjoyed a tradition of 
precision in their work. But there was 
satisfaction beyond words to express in 
going over the whole ship anyhow — 
seeing, feeling, almost tasting, the de- 
lights of the Arachne. It was almost a 
ritual with him, to start from his own 
quarters, in the top section of the Tun- 
nel, just under the top main thrust bear- 
ing, beyond which was the wart on the 
hull that was the control bridge. It was 



"HELL SHIP" 



9 



a grrand thing to stand in his own door 
and smell, and listen, before beginning 
the ritualistic descent through the heart 
of his kingdom. 

Just outside McNab's quarters the 
huge magneso-beryl girders were a trac- 
ery of complex web-work, distributing 
the thrust of the monster main shaft. 
That web-work talked to Josh McNab 
in confidential whispers as it strained to 
its work — telling him how things were 
going, and whether he was correctly 
doing his job. The whispers were so 
real to Josh that sometimes he caught 
himself saying: "So, is that richt the 
noo ?" 

He got his bearings now from the 
crew's quarters, in the topmost rounds 
of the hull, where the rooms were many 
shaped, and intersected by the same 
thrust-spreading girders. Those girders, 
whispering, lulled his own tired men to 
sleep. The whole crew seemed, to Josh, 
like spiders in the girder web. 

THE TUNNEL ran the length, aloft 
and below, of the Arachne — almost the 
full two hundred and seventy-five feet 
of her. Just to inspect it made Josh 
feel that he was the heart of the sturdy 
old spaceship. Seldom indeed did he 
use the swift elevators that paralleled 
the shaft, for what could you see from 
elevators? Nothing at all ! But the cir- 
cular staircase leading down — that was 
something different. It circled the Tun- 
nel, and kept you so close to the smell 
and the sound of the main-line helix that 
you felt — if you were Josh McNab — 
like you were a surgeon examining a 
patient with painstaking care. There 
was always the bile of oil in the nostrils, 
perfume to the soul of a Scotch engi- 
neer. And then there were the clank- 
ings of the perfectly fitting parts of the 
helix and its operating sister — of course 
the ship was a "she" — the motor's rotor, 
wound on the same shaft because of 
centrifugal stresses. 

McNab started below. The sound of 



his footfalls on the steps would let his 
crew know he was enroutc — not that it 
mattered especially, as he wasn't the 
kind to sneak up on honest, hard-work- 
ing men — for it went winging down the 
Tunnel as though he had shouted he 
were coming. He took a white glove 
from his pocket, thrust his hand into it. 
It was spotless. Grinning, as though 
sure of the result, he closed the gloved 
hand on the rail of the staircase, pol- 
ished like a mirror, and clung as he 
walked down. After ten steps or so he 
stopped, looked at the glove, and his 
chest swelled a little. The glove was 
still spotless. His lads kept things ship- 
shape, sure enough. But, just to make 
sure they hadn't cleaned the rail for his 
benefit for the first ten feet or so, he slid 
his hand along the rail for ten feet more. 
Then he took off the glove, still stain- 
less, put it into his pocket. 

A complete picture of the ship was 
in his head, but even so, every' trip 
was a voyage of discovery, every step 
through her a delight. A great sphere, 
she was, two hundred and fifty feet in 
diameter amidships, at the belt. He 
liked best to think of her when the heli- 
copter tugs were warping her in to a 
landing — swallows about a mighty hawk. 
Ten thousand tons of dependable space- 
ship. Though he couldn't see through 
the walls of the Tunnel as he descended, 
he knew where he was every second of 
the descent. 

Level under level, below the crew's 
quarters, the passengers' quarters, by 
classes — based, as always, on price paid 
for tickets and service furnished — to the 
first-class quarters, which gave directly 
onto the mid-section, by gentle stairs, 
which housed the belt promenade — with 
its transparent plastic windows — the 
main lounge, bar, dining saloon and so- 
cial quarters. 

McNab liked to visit the mid-section 
to watch passengers come aboard. 

Remembering that now, as he passed 
the midships level, he hurried a bit, to 



10 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



get back in time, though he never 
slighted an inspection. In the lower 
third of the ships were the cargo levels, 
where stowing must be such that the 
center of gravity was below the gravita- 
tional line helix, so the ship would hang 
straight. Down there, too, were the ac- 
cumulators — storing electric power for 
emergencies- — and the atom converters 
whose endless humming was music in 
the ears of McNab, as much a part of 
him as the little tufts of gray hair that 
thrust forth from those same ears. Oxy- 
gen and water tanks were down there, 
too, the air apparatus, all the auxiliary 
functions, the D. C. motor — forty thou- 
sand horse power ! — series wound, capa- 
ble of revving up to 35,000. 

He checked the accumulators and the 
atom converters, and kissed his finger- 
tips to them, looked around guiltily to 
make sure nobody had caught him at it. 
"I could e'en kiss 'em i' fact," he told 
himself. 

Then, remembering again, he hurried 
back up the stairs, again disdaining the 
elevators, trying to forget how the main 
or gravitational line helix — which 
crawled like a snake around the rotor 
shaft — almost always got him down. It 
worked miracles, and he wasn't too sure 
of himself in the presence of miracles. 
There was something almost weird and 
unearthly about the helix. 

II. 

HE PAUSED before reaching the 
bulkhead that gave on the belt prome- 
nade, and looked at his watch. Fifteen 
minutes to go and everything ready. 
Skipper Parsons would be aboard 
shortly. The passengers, by this time, 
.would be arriving by bus. The bus 
allowed few minutes' leeway, so that 
passengers wouldn't have to stand 
around and fidget. 

"Carry on," said Josh to his crew, 
many of whom were perched at various 
strategic places along the Tunnel, on 



the stairs, to watch every movemenj of 
the rotor shaft. "I'm going oot to the 
promenade to wutch the passengers 
coom aboord." 

The crew hadn't even looked at him 
as he made his inspection. Now, though, 
one or two of them grinned at him. All 
knew his weakness for watching pretty 
girls and their sweethearts, newlyweds, 
old men, old women — the latter usually 
jittery until they found that a voyage 
on the Arachne was probably safer than 
sitting at home in their own rocking 
chairs. He stepped now into the middle 
of the belt promenade, which circled the 
Tunnel shaft, stopped, straightened up 
and looked as military as possible. 

Ah, but the girls were lovely. Stars 
in the eyes of every one of them. Hair 
done just so. Light summery dresses 
suggesting the right holiday mood. Men 
in knickers, bareheaded, maybe a "few 
reckless ones with suspicious bulges to 
their hip pockets where their flasks 
rested. The Arachne's bar was some- 
times expensive for people who'd cal- 
culated their pennies carefully for the 
trip. 

Josh cast a weather eye at the ports, 
against which some of the young cou- 
ples were standing, looking out and 
down, enjoying the thrill of trying to 
look around the bulge of the Arachne to 
the ground, nearly a hundred and forty 
feet below. The sight always gave Josh 
a slight pang of memory — of his days 
on the steamer lanes, when passengers 
just like these had stood on covered hur- 
ricane decks, their faces flushed with ex- 
citement, their eyes alight at first sight 
of blue water, their legs spread against 
the first rolling caused by increasing 
depths. The change had been slight, 
after all. Then, they went out and away. 
Now they went up and away. 

"Hi, Uncle Josh !" said a clear voice. 
Mary Purdy came sailing around the 
promenade so fast her hair blew free. 
She spent most of her money and all 
her vacations on the Arachne. She was 



"HELL SHIP 



young, lovely, and Josh adored her se- 
cretly. Besides, like that other one, her 
name was Mary. She could have had 
all Josh's lifetime's savings merely by 
saying so — when Josh would have pro- 
tested loudly, grimly and stubbornly, had 
he been called upon to spend any part 
of them to save his own life. She 
grinned at him, showing twin rows of 
fine white teeth, and fully conscious of 
what she did to Josh McNab. 

"Hello. Mary. Why dinna ye murry 
ain o' th' crew an' live aboord th' Ahr- 
rahknah?" 

She laughed. "Excuse me, Uncle 
Josh, but I like to hear you speak the 
name of the ship. I know you love it 
so, but the way you sling it out witli 
your Scotch burr — which I love with all 
my heart, Uncle Josh ! — it sounds like 
a fighting word ! And as for marrying, 
you're the only one aboard I'd marry, 
and you shy off from me as though you 
were a burned child, I the stove." 

"I'm auld enoo, Mury" — his brogue 
got thicker with confusion, and Mary 
frowned as she listened, but drank it in 
with delight, hard as it was at times to 
catch — "to have bairns yer age. But o' 
course, if ye were richt seerious " 

"There is a joker, Uncle Josh." 

"Dinna tell me!" 

"You're not my father, and I'm half 
serious about it. If you really set out 
to take me by storm I'd fling myself 
into your arms so hard I'd knock you 
over — solid like a rock though you are !" 

HIS GRAY EYES went wide. Mary 
Purdy sounded serious enough to puz- 
zle him vastly — and to make his face 
suddenly turn brick red. Mary laughed 
at his blushes. If he were younger — ■ 
and she really meant it! But there, he 
was forgetting there had once been an- 
other Mary, whose memory he still 
loved. He couldn't seem -to find an an- 
swer to her direct frankness, and stum- 
bled around verbally,, seeking a way out 
-—though he'd have died there, of bash- 



fulness, before he'd have gone away 
from Mary Purdy. Finally he brought 
forth some words that would do. 

"A grrand boonch o' passengers, this 
time, Murrry," he said, his eyes roving 
over the lines of folks trooping aboard. 
Some swung instantly to the promenade, 
starting to walk around and around, al- 
most running, as though afraid from the 
very start that something would happen 
somewhere around the spherical hull that 
they would miss. Some headed straight 
for the bar, and drinks. Some headed 
for the lounge and social halls — and 
more drinks. Some would stick to 
bridge tables from the starting time until 
they arrived at journey's end. Funny 
about people, that way. Tool* a trip to 
Mars as a matter of course. Didn't 
even look up from their cards when the 
Arachne turned on its "web", a million 
miles from its destination, and began 
to lower away. Nothing fazed them. 

But if that rotor shaft cracked 

He shut it from his mind, thinking 
of Mary, wondering whether he 
shouldn't tell her about it — and decided 
not to. There wouldn't be much dan- 
ger, even if it cracked, and thought of 
Mary aboard filled him with such de- 
light that he took a chance. She'd be 
tagging him everywhere he went, and 
he'd be liking it, answering questiens 
shot at him with machine-gun rapidity. 
Mary already knew as much about the 
ship as Skipper Parsons. She'd even 
been allowed on the control bridge dur- 
ing some recent trips, but Josh was her 
favorite. If she hadn't remembered 
everything he told her he'd have thought 
she made him talk just to listen to — and 
sometimes mimic — his brogue. 

Mary was talking, though, and he 
gave her every attention. "There you 
go," she said, "changing the subject as 
always. Uncle Josh, for being the soul 
and spirit of a proud old beauty like the 
Arachne, you're the 'fraidest man I ever 
saw." 

"I fear naught," said Josh, "yet there 



12 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



be summat aboot wimmin called 'Murrry' 
that makes even the calloused heart of 
an auld Scutchman go gallivantin'. Best 
sit ye doon, Mury. The Skipper cootns 
sharlty an' we start when he's abbord 
an' the Ara — the Ara " 

Mary's grin began to widen. She lis- 
tened carefully, leaning forward on tip- 
toes, not to miss the slightest inflection 
of Josh McNab's voice when he spoke 
the name of the Arachne. 

"Tti feerst o' th' spider fleet !" he said 
triumphantly. 

"Come, Uncle Josh, say it for Mary !" 

"The Ahrrahknah," he said promptly, 
and she didn't laugh at him, and he knew 
that she wouldn't even think of it if she 
thought he were the slightest bit sensi- 
tive about his brogue. 

"Look like a nice voyage this time?" 
she pursued. 

"O' coourse ! The Ahrrahknah speeds 
alang her force-lane like a rat alang a 
rafter, a spider alang her web." 

"And John McNab running her!" 

"Skipper Parsons runs her!" 

"Yes, but without Uncle Josh, 
where?" 

JOSH McNAB reflected a moment. 
"Weel, noo, he's no a Scutchman, nor 
yet a Chief Engineer, nor has he the 
name o' Murrry, but for a' that an' a' 
that " • 

"He's a nice figure of a man, Uncle 
Josh, and you're so loyal to him you 
could bust." 

She came closer to him suddenly, 
grabbed him by the ears, pulled his head 
down and gave him a smack on the lips 
from which he was destined never to 
recover. Then she stood back, grinned 
at him. 

"You'll never have me, I know," she 
said softly, "so I have to do the best I 
can. He's aboard. Uncle Josh." 

"Young Islip?" McNab scowled sud- 
denly. 

"Yes." 

"With anither woman !" 



"Yes. But it's my fault, and he's 
punishing me— I hope! We split in a 
quarrel last week. But she is never go- 
ing to have him, Uncle Josh !" 

He stared into her determined eyes, 
suddenly much concerned, feeling any 
hurt she may have felt — or he even sus- 
pected she might feel — as a hurt to him- 
self. Now, slowly, he shook his head. 

"She willna have him, Murrry, if ye 
wush to keep him. Aye, I ken it in yer 
e'en! Like a Scutch lassie ye ne'er gie 
oop yer ain !" 

"There may be an emergency or — or 
something, Uncle Josh, out in space 
somewhere. Then he'll turn to the one 
he really wants, and if it isn't me I'll 
never bother him again. I'll just lie 
down and die, or force you to take me." 

Josh went brick red again. Mary 
laughed, then stopped laughing suddenly, 
pretending not to notice young Jack 
Islip — a redheaded hellion, Josh thought 
him, with a streak of recklessness in him 
that might be dangerous in years to 
come, to somebody, some woman — walk- 
ing blithely past with a fluttery female 
on his arm whom Josh disliked at once. 
He stared at them, not noting when 
Mary Purdy, to avoid notice, slipped 
into the lounge. 

Josh McNab, watching the chiseling 
female, decided that Mary could give her 
aces and spades and beat her from Earth 
to Procyon hands down. But was Jack 
Islip worth it? Mary might think so, 
but if Mary got hurt at all, over this 

young redhead Well, Josh would 

take a hand. He might even take a 
hand anyhow. Certainly she — by giving 
her confidence — had offered him the 
chance, almost begged him to take it. 
But what could an old engineer do? 
Still, an emergency — such as might be 
brought about by a rotor shaft beginning 
to crack. . . . 

He shook his head. What in the devil 
was he thinking aboot, just because a 
lovely girl's name was Mary? 



"HELL SHIP" 



11 



SKIPPER PARSONS came out of 
one of the elevator doors, his gaze roam- 
ing over the promenade. McNab knew 
that Parsons had come hunting him, 
knowing where to find him. He also 
knew that Parsons wanted to show off 
his new uniform, that fitted his trim 
figure so perfectly. 

"Right on time, McNab.. Everything 
set ?" said Parsons. 

"Aye, sir, a' is richt, savin' the mat- 
ter o' rrcporrt " 

"The rotor shaft will hold," said Par- 
sons, as though his saying so would 
make it hold. His gaze followed the 
promenading passengers, and Parsons 
now indulged in a bit of harmless show- 
ing off that never failed to amuse Mc- 
Nab. He walked to the inter-level ad- 
dress system, whence his voice reached 
every part of the ship, including — espe- 
cially including — every part of it where 
passengers would be at the moment of 
starting. 

"Stations all!" called Parsons, stand- 
ing very straight, apparently unconscious 
now that promenaders had ceased prome- 
nading and were watching and listening. 
"Three seconds to go !" 

There was almost no perceptible 
movement, save that the knees of some 
cf the passengers bent, and even McNab 
stiffened his legs against the drag. The 
low. smooth whine of the great rotor 
and gravitational-line helix built up as 
the Arachne moved out of her slip, 
swifter and smoother than greased light- 
ning — looking, McNab knew, like a 
mighty balloon that had broken free and 
was headed for heaven with nothing to 
hold her back. 

The start was never tough, for near 
any planet the gravitational lines of force 
were so close together that it was a 
cinch. And the Arachne, riding her own 
particular lane, feeding the lines of force 
through her helix, transversing the Tun- 
nel, was really like a spider speeding 
along her web. 

"Bonnie! Bonnie!" whispered Josh 



McNab. "Bonnie as a lassie from th' 
hielands!" 

He crossed the promenade to the 
ports, automatically adopting the rolling 
walk of the sailor that he could never 
lose, really, because he had spent his 
early years on salt water. He looked 
out, sort of checking his location in space. 
The Earth was already a ball, far below 
the Arachne. The lines of force, as the 
Arachne "climbed", would draw farther 
and farther apart, and the motor's revs 
would climb to compensate. In no time 
she would be doing her 35,000 rpm's. 
And when that time came Josh McNab's 
place was in the Tunnel. He turned 
back, regarding the passengers — again 
promenading — with something like envy. 
He stepped into the Tunnel to watch the 
behavior of the rotor shaft — after tak- 
ing one swift glance into the lounge to 
see what had become of Mary Purdy. 
He didn't see her. But he did see that 
the rotor shaft was to be a real concern. 
Without the slightest doubt, it would 
not complete the Martian journey with- 
out being repaired. 

And to repair the rotor, a million 

miles from nowhere Well, that 

might be more of an emergency than 
even Mary Purdy dared ask for. 

III. 

STILL, for two days the Arachne 
sped on her way. Josh McNab seldom 
slept, save in catnaps. He was up and 
down the circular "ladder" a dozen 
times an hour, seemingly tireless for all 
his years. He was listening to the voice 
of the Tunnel, the murmuring of the 
helix, the talking of the metal parts of 
the whole motor assembly. It was typi- 
cal of him that even in the growing 
tension, the waiting for something to 
happen, he occasionally took out the 
white glove and tested the shining brass 
of the rail. 

And now and again Mary Purdy 
came to him, suddenly, from one level 



14 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



or the other, as though she always knew 
where he was, and appeared when she 
needed his company. He knew things 
were not going well with her, and there 
was even a time or two, when she stood 
on the circular stairs, hands gripping the 
rail until her knuckles were white, that 
he was a little afraid she might fall, by 
"accident". Then he cast the thought 
from him as unworthy. Mary Purdy — 
nor any other girl named Mary — would 
die the coward's way. 

But she was eating her heart out, and 
there was little he could do. He couldn't 
• even go and kick young Islip in the teeth, 
just for luck. Because he had to stick 
to the Tunnel, and young Islip avoided 
the ship's interior, probably because that 
frippery female with him couldn't stand 
the bite of oil, or the sight of laboring 
men not too fully clad, keeping vigil 
with Josh McNab. Not Mary, though ; 
she was a real man's woman. The crew 
knew it, and brightened and grinned at 
her when she appeared, and seemed to 
gain strength from her presence. 

Then, when things were pretty bad 
for Mary, by the looks of her, and she 
stood on a landing with McNab, in the 
Tunnel abeam of the belt promenade: 
"Murrry," he said softly, dropping his 
calloused hand over hers — which took a 
lot of courage for Josh McNab, "is yon 
laddie worth it ?" 

"To me. Josh, yes." 

She swayed, and would have fallen, 
and Josh had an inspiration. 

"Tell me, Murrry, the noo, aboot the 
ship. Answers micht help a wee bit 
ye ken " 

She understood instantly, and turned 
her head toward him for a moment, 
without relaxing her grip on the rail. 
She did, however, lean her body a bit 
away from the cylindrical pit of the rotor. 

"Top and main thrust bearings, Josh," 
she said, "are oil pad flotation surfaces, 
with 22 square feet area, operating with 
an oil pressure of 350 pounds per square 
■ inch. The metal of the bearing-plates 



is cadmium bronze. The main rotor 
ball-caps are chome-moly- vanadium 
steel ; the shaft itself a 30" chrome-moly 
heat-treated alloy " 

The Arachne, after all, was one of her 
passions, and her own words did a lot to 
help her back to herself. 

"The hull plates are of magnesium- 
beryl Thanks, Josh. I needed 

that, I guess. I'll try my best to stop 
being silly. If he doesn't care, I'm fool- 
ish to bother, even though it hurts in- 
side. But you wouldn't know, Josh " 

"Her name was Murrry, too, lang an' 
lang ago," said McNab slowly. 

"Oh, Josh, I didn't think " 

"So mony folk, Murrry, dinna think 
at all ! But dinna ye fret " 

JOSH McNAB'S life, as he saw it, 
had changed but little since he had first 
gone to sea in almost the last of the sur- 
face ships on Earth. When they'd gone 
the way of all obsolete man-made things, 
he'd stepped into the stratosphere. Then 
out of stratosphere ships — which lasted 
such a short time — into the Arachne and 
the regular Earth-Mars run. Like 
clockwork it had been, for five years. 
Vast space instead of vast oceans of salt 
water. So many things that were the 
same. 

The decks were circular, a grand 
promenade — at least amidships. They 
got smaller as you went aloft or below. 
At sea they'd been sort of oblong, and 
there you could hear the swish of the 
sea against the hull, feel the heeling of 
the ship as monster waves struck it 
broadside or quartering. At sea you 
could see the proof of a roaring storm. 
In the Arachne you couldn't see much, 
and there wasn't much swaying about, 
or back and forth, thanks to the stabil- 
izing gyroscopes. Walking the decks 
was like walking any other decks, when 
a ship was tied up at the dock, or "like 
a painted ship upon a painted ocean". 

"Uncle Josh," said Mary, turning her 
hand in his, and clutching his gnarled 



HELL SHIP" 



15 



fist with a sudden, fierce pressure, "why 
do women have to be so doggoned weak 
and silly over a redheaded creature in 
trousers ?" 

"Weel, Murrry " he began, and 

got no further. 

Mary heard it, too, or sensed it. With 
the crew swinging into swift movement 
she could not miss it. The voice of the 
Tunnel had changed. Maybe there was 
a different kind of whisper in the girders 
alow and aloft. Maybe there was some- 
thing differently metallic in the stealthy 
slither of the brushes on the rotor slip- 
rings. Maybe the sc huffing of the helix 
had changed. 

But true sailormen knew the very 
smell of danger. 

"Josh," whispered Mary, "what is it ?" 

"Git ye back to th' promenade, 
Murrry," said Josh, his face grim. 
"There may be danger here, an' if aught 
happened ye " 

"Danger?" 

He stared at her. She wasn't fright- 
ened. Indeed he saw a flare of hope in 
her eyes, and knew she hadn't forgotten 
her wish for an emergency that might 
bring Jack Islip to her side. 

"Really?" 

"Back to the promenade, Murrry," 
said Josh. Mary, with another swift 
press of her soft warm hand, went. Josh 
McNab began to bark at his men, sta- 
tioned up and down the length of the 
shaft. He yelled for information which 
he might correlate that would give him 
the exact location of the sound, and 
therefore, perhaps, the spot where to 
look for the break. His men were up 
and clown the stairs, suddenly, like fire- 
men on their pole when an alarm came 
in. Josh himself moved with amazing 
speed. 

The rotor was going. They might 
make Mars before it went entirely, but 
he doubted it. Things sometimes went 
fast when they started. He stopped on 
a landing where a chart of progress was 
shown, and grinned. 



At this point in the normal trip a 
hundred and fifty pound man weighed 
around twenty pounds, maybe a bit less. 
But when the motor stopped. . . . 

Of course it would have to be stopped 
now. If anything came apart, at such 
terrific speed, it would cause a pretty 
awful mess. Pieces of metal, hurled 
through the walls of the Tunnel, might 
conceivably penetrate every compart- 
ment, every stateroom on the Arachne. 
killing every person aboard — even Jack 
Islip and Mary Purdy. 

JOSH McNAB took an elevator for 
the first time since the danger had really 
begun to develop, and dropped down to 
the belt promenade. A query over the 
inter-level address system had informed 
him that Parsons was in the lounge, 
talking with an admiring bunch of fe- 
males. McNab told him he'd rather see 
him alone, but Parsons said it didn't 
matter, and he was the ship's master. 

So Josh McNab reported to Skipper 
Parsons in the midst of a flock of people. 
"The shaft, sirr," he said, and his brogue 
had never been thicker. He felt his face 
flushing painfully as the women looked 
up at him, some with smiles of amuse- 
ment. He knew from long experience 
what some of them would do and say 
when they listened to his brogue. There 
would be giggles, and he would get con- 
fused, and Parsons would think it funny. 
Parsons was a good skipper, but he was 
bull -headed and not always bright — even 
though he did have a ready tongue when 
it came to gab with the ladies. 

Parsons sounded very brave and mas- 
culine. "It can't go until we reach 
Mars !" 

"I canna promise, sirrr. If yon auld 
buzzard, Caperton " 

"Have a care, McNab. Remember 
your position. It isn't up to you to criti- 
cize the owner." 

"Aye, sir. I ken that, but the auld 
buzzard " 

"Stow it, I said! Your job is to run 



16 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



the motor, keep the Arachne going !" 

McNab could see that Parsons was 
expanding in the presence and obvious 
admiration of the women. Other pas- 
sengers, hearing, were crowding in to 
listen. Mary Purdy came and stood 
close to McNab. Only jack Islip and 
that female of his stayed apart from the 
group. 

Mary recognized McNab's distaste for 
discussion in the presence of so many 
women. "The rotor?" she asked. 

Josh McNab nodded. 

"He insists it should be stopped," said 
Parsons. "And the Arachne has held to 
schedule for five years. Her excellent 
record must not be broken." 

"If Uncle Josh thinks we should stop," 
said Mary quietly, "it strikes me that 
even you should listen, Captain Par- 
sons." 

It was no way to handle Parsons, and 
McNab knew it. He wished Mary 
hadn't spoken. It made him feel like a 
fool, though he loved her anew for stand- 
ing up to Parsons. Not many people 
dared do that, even women, when he was 
setting out to be authoritative. He rose 
now, with half the passengers trailing 
him, close on the heels of McNab and 
Mary, and stopped at the bulkhead where 
he kept a chart, properly marked every 
six hours for the benefit of the passen- 
gers. He touched the chart with a blunt 
forefinger. 

"We're about halfway, McNab," he 
said, almost as though he were teaching 
the alphabet to an incorrible kindergar- 
ten child. "Right where the lines of 
force are most widely separated. If we 
stop now, we drift out of them entirely 
— into the doldrums, speeding on for 
Heaven knows where. I don't care to 
risk it." 

He turned back to McNab. "Drive 
her, McNab," he said grimly. "We can 
beat the break to our port." 

"Aye, sir, but " 

"Orders, McNab. I said to drive 
her!" 



McNAB touched his forelock. He'd 
served with too many skippers— includ- 
ing this one — to even suggest disobeying 
orders, or being slow in obeying them. 
He turned away. The thing left to do 
was stick to the Tunnel for the better 
part of two more days, and sort of pray 
the rotor to safety. Prayers were all 
right, McNab knew, but spanners, and 
the right kind of heat were also good for 
a break in the rotor. 

Parsons was blundering again. 'He 
shouldn't have said anything in front of 
the passengers, and now he was going 
even further, when it wasn't really nec- 
essary. It was one thing to kill peo- 
ple, or take chances with their lives, and 
quite another to tell them what to ex- 
pect. Parsons spoke over the inter- 
level address system. 

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, 
"there is no real danger, of course. But 
our rotor shaft may go at any moment. 
We're driving at full speed for the near- 
est Martian port. Just don't lose your 
heads, and we'll be all right " 

Mary understood, too, that Parsons 
was bulling ahead, making blunders that 
might prove costly. Her hand gripped 
McNab's arm tightly. He patted that 
hand with his own. It was grand for a 
man's strength to have someone who 
stood by through all sorts of weather. 
Parsons was going on, managing now 
to sound pompous. 

"Just remember the tradition of 
Caperton lines — five years on schedule 
without loss of life or a ship. Settle 
back and be comfortable, and we'll get 
you through !" 

A vast, ominous stillness seemed to 
settle over the whole ship when Parsons 
had finished. He wasn't the first to 
realize, but it startled him. Maybe he 
had expected shouts of encouragement, 
or belief in his prowess. If so, the sud- 
den silence must have bothered him con- 
siderably, or what happened in the next 
few moments would never have hap- 
pened. In that taut silence the sounds 



HELL SHIP" 



17 




18 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



came from the Tunnel to the promenade, 
and thence — since Parsons had left open 
the public-address microphone — to every 
nock and cranny of the Arachne. The 
sound was the shuddering of the rotor, 
the schuffiiig indecision that had sent 
McNab hurrying to see the captain. 

Faces turned toward the doors that 
masked the Tunnel. Eyes widened with 
dawning terror. The circular tube in 
the middle of the Arachne had become, 
on the instant, the abode of death per- 
haps, certainly the abode of a ghastly 
threat. 

A marine officer barked: "Every- 
body keep your heads now!" And to 
his men, before Parsons could say any- 
thing, head him off, "See that there is 
no running about, no panic!" 

Fear was a poor weapon with which 
to avert catastrophe. And Parsons 
didn't help much when he drew himself 
up and said quietly : "My place now is 
on the control bridge. McNab!" 

"Aye, sirr!" 

"Drive her!" 

"Aye, sirrr!" 

With long manly strides Parsons 
made for the nearest elevator, entered, 
closed the door. McNab, able to hear 
the voice of his beloved Tunnel and its 
metal monsters from the promenade, 
hesitated, watching the passengers un- 
easily. He didn't like the growing 
whiteness in so many faces. 

IV. 

"I MIGHT HAVE known you'd get 
me into trouble ! Why did I ever come 
on this trip anyhow ? We're all as good 
as dead !' 

Jack Islip's girl McNab strode 

to her, enroute to the Tunnel. "That 
isna true, lass," he said quietly, staring 
her straight in the eye, for the first time 
in years unabashed by a woman. 

"What do you know about it, you old 
billygoat?" 

- "Mind your business, McNab," said 



Islip, his face red as he stood close to 
the girl. "Mind your own business or 
I'll knock your teeth down your throat ! 
You can't talk to my girl like that." 

"Then see that th' lass doesna go daft, 
Jock!" 

"Who's daffy?" shrieked the girl. 
"Trying to quiet me, hey ? Because you 
know I'm right." 

"I'll have your job for this, McNab," 
said young Islip, noting that McNab's 
lips twisted with contempt. 

Mary Purdy still clung to Josh's arm. 
"Forget it, Uncle Josh,' 7 she said. "It 
doesn't matter. Nobody with any sense 
will think there is reason for panic, with 
you running the machines. Personally, 
I'll follow you anywhere." 

"Can the act, Mary Purdy," said the 
girl. "I'm wise to why you're pulling 
it, and you won't get to first base." 

"It's quite possible I suddenly don't 
want to," said Mary Purdy. "Come on, 
Josh, I'm going with you to the Tunnel." 

"What do you mean by that. Mary?" 
asked Jack Islip, bristling. 

She chose to misunderstand him. 
"Only that I'm tagging along with Josh," 
she said. "Any objections?" 

There didn't seem to be any. She 
clung to Josh's arm as the Chief headed 
for the entrance to the Tunnel. Josh 
was as proud as Punch and showed it. 
Mary was all right. Maybe Jack Islip 
was, too, for hadn't he stuck up for "his 
girl"? Right or wrong, there must be 
something to a fellow who'd do that. 

Josh was increasingly conscious of the 
terror that was growing into a mon- 
strous thing on the Arachne. If it broke 
into action he preferred Mary to be with 
him. For if the rotor went — at full 
speed — she would be killed anywhere 
near the ship anyhow. So that wouldn't 
make any difference. 

Every passenger knew his literature 
of the space-lanes. Ghastly things could 
happen. A rupture in the hull meant 
instant death. Becalming of the ship 
meant eternity spent between worlds. 



"HELL SHIP" 



19 



Becalming until stores were ex- 
hausted "Well, there were endless 

possibilities. And the whole thing could 
be circumvented by stopping to repair 
the crack before going on. The Old 
Man ? Well, he was all right. But no- 
body — certainly no junior on his own 
ship — could tell him anything, even sug- 
gest anything. 

Josh and Mary hadn't even reached 
the door when a middle-aged man 
screamed. "I'm going to do something! 
I've studied these rotors and helixes. I 
know all the answers. We're all going 
to die if somebody doesn't do some- 
thing!" 

McNab paused, turned. The shout- 
ing man was charging toward the door 
through which McNab himself intended 
going. He must be stopped. A marine 
sergeant solved that problem by crack- 
ing the frenzied man in the mouth. The 
fellow went down, hitting the deck with 
entirely too much force. His head 
bounced as it struck. The marine 
rubbed his knuckles. His look said as 
plainly as words: "Anybody else want 
some?" 

NOBODY could get off the Arachne, 
for its doors were sealed at point of 
departure and could not be opened until 
she reached her destination. And even 
if they could get out, what then ? The 
answer to that question was an appalling 
one. But in making for any point of 
fancied safety, there might well be a gen- 
eral pile-up, wherein someone was sure 
to be killed. A panic-stricken rush into 
the Tunnel, for instance, might fill the 
shaft from this level down, with dead. 
And all because, Josh thought bitterly, 
old Capcrton wanted to save his time- 
and-a-half for overtime. 

Beside him he could feel Mary Purdy's 
whole body shaking. "The lad," he 
whispered, "isna worth your trouble." 
He meant Islip, who should, he thought, 
have headed off that silly girl. 

"Maybe you're right, Uncle Josh, but 

AST— 2 



I want him, and nobody else. I love 
him even more for what just happened. 
He's being harassed to death, but I'm 
getting no joy out of it. I'd rather spend 
eternity out here with him, dead, than 
five minutes on any planet, with any 
man alive — except you !" 

"Aye, lass," he said softly, turning 
back as though she had been his skip- 
per and he had just acknowledged an 
order. "Aye, lass, have him ye shall. 
But yon rotor, now " 

"Why don't you override Parsons, 
Josh, ami stop the motor yourself?" 

Josh stared at her aghast, as though 
she had committed sacrilege beyond be- 
lief. He shook his head. 

"Sorry, Josh," she said instantly. "I 
don't know much about discipline, and 
being a woman wouldn't take it seriously 
anyhow. It would be what they call 
mutiny, wouldn't it?" 

Before he could answer, someone 
screamed, and both turned back again. 

"Look out, leatherneck !" 

The man who had been knocked un- 
conscious had come around suddenly. 
He had risen to his feet, grabbed a chair, 
was rushing on the marine who had 
slugged him. The marine turned just 
in time to get a hefty wallop squarely 
across the skull. But the act of the man 
the leatherneck had knocked down, fo- 
cusing on McNab's consciousness with 
the weird force of a picture done in slow 
motion, gave him the answer to his own 
problem, and that of the Arachne. 

The leatherneck, out on his feet, went 
down with queer slowness. Other ma- 
rines flung themselves at the frenzied 
passengers. And there was stark sur- 
prise on their faces, about something 
they obviously could not understand, but 
that McNab did understand. 

In a split second, while the women 
crowded against the ports, their mouths 
opened on screams that promised never 
to end, marines and men passengers were 
joined in a battle of fists, knees, and 
skulls. Blood spattered as fists thud- 



20 



P 

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



ded home. It was a good battle and 
McNab would have liked to get into it. 

But at that moment Skipper Parsons 
appeared from the first class passenger 
level. He noticed McN'ab before he paid 
much attention to the melee. 

"What's the delay, McNab? I told 
you to drive the Arachne. Why are you 
still hanging around the promenade? 
Report to your quarters under arrest ! 
I'll have no malingering on the Arachne 
even on the part of the Chief Engineer!" 

McNAB STARTED to protest, but 
decided against it. Instead, this time he 
went through the door, into the Tunnel, 
started clumping — not aloft, but below! 
Yet he had been ordered to his quarters, 
under arrest, and his quarters were high 
in the top third of the Arachne. 

"John," said Mary, "don't be foolish! 
Your whole career, your whole life can 
be ruined by one mistake." 

He didn't answer, didn't look back. 
Nor did he order her to get out of the 
Tunnel, not to tag him along. McNab's 
mind was more or less one-track. 'JNow 
that he had made it up, nothing could 
stop him. Mary's heels rang on the 
steps behind him. He chuckled as he 
went, thinking of the feminine sound of 
those heels. 

He went straight to the motor, far 
down in the bottom third of the Arachne. 
Reaching the motor, he turned on Mary, 
and smiled thinly. 

"Should we gae furrther, Murrry, 
we'd be in th' bilge, or oot !" 

She didn't answer, but stared at him 
without blinking. She saw in that in- 
stant that nothing she or anybody could 
do would change Josh's mind about what 
he intended doing. And what he in- 
tended doing was simple. 

He shut off the motor, and thanked 
God softly for stabilizing gyroscopes, 
considering the location of the Arachne 
in space between Earth and Mars. For 
but for those gyroscopes now, with the 
motor stopping, and the mighty rotor 



soon motionless, the Arachne would spin 
like a monster top. Almost instantly the 
voice of Parsons sounded in the engine 
room. 

"Who gave you orders to shut down, 
McNab?" 

"Aye, aye, sirr," said McNab, grin- 
ning and winking at Mary. 

"Are you stark, staring crazy, Mc- 
Nab?" 

"Aye, sirr, repairin' richt noo, sirr!" 

"I didn't say anything about repair- 
ing," roared the skipper. "I said to 
drive her. Now, with the motor 

stopped Start it again, McNab, 

do you hear?" 

"It isna poseeble, sirr," said McNab 
quietly, and Mary, looking into his dour 
face, knew that he spoke the truth. "Re- 
pairs must be made, sirr." 

Not once did McNab vary in the 
slightest from the strictest forms of spa- 
tio-naval discipline. He'd overridden 
his Captain, but he meant to stick by 
his guns, and pretend that he had been 
ordered to ait the motor. 

The machinery was already almost 
motionless. The throbbing of the gyro- 
scopes could be felt, heard. And — 
"weight", what little there was, died 
with the failing thrust of the helix. 
McNab grinned at Mary, and suggested 
that she return to the belt promenade, 
to "see the fun". 

"Fun?" she repeated. "Fun?" 

Josh shrugged, grinned, motioned her 
up the ladder. Mary, obedient because 
she saw that Josh meant it, started. But 
she didn't get far. A look of amazement 
and momentary terror crossed her face. 
| She couldn't move at all. without push- 
ting hard against the floor. Then, when 
! she had moved, she rose into the air 
: and came down with magical slowness." 
'She put both hands to her heart, and 
'Josh McNab chuckled, waiting for her 
to get the answer without prompting. 
, "I get it, Uncle Josh," she said. "At 
; the present moment I weigh exactly 
nothing. I have attained, therefore, vain 



"HELL SHIP" 



21 



woman's oldest dream, raised to the nth 
degree. All right, I'll go to the prome- 
nade to see the fun, but how do I get 
there?" 

Josh McNab answered by example. 
He simply grasped the rail of the stair- 
case and went up hand over hand, trail- 
ing his lean and efficient body behind 
him. Laughter rang in the Tunnel, and 
he knew that Mary Purdy was right 
behind him. 

Aloft, along the length of the Tunnel, 
his men were busy, apparently swim- 
ming in space between the staircase and 
the rotor, preparing the materials needed 
— without command — for repairing the 
rotor. Some, below, were breaking out 
the magnetic shoe clamps for easier 
movement. 

"You're through, McNab," came the 
voice of Parsons over the inter-level 
system. "I don't suppose you know that, 
thanks to you, we're adrift — with no 
lines of force operating through the helix 
— in doldrums that, as far as we are con- 
cerned, are limitless. But get onto that 
repair job, McNab. It's all there is left 
to do. When it's done, you'll carry out 
the orders I really did give you, and 
confine yourself to your quarters until 
we return to our Earth slip. Then " 

Parsons didn't finish. He didn't need 
to. But McNab forgot, next moment, 
all about it. He was engaged in the 
amazing and apparently Gargartuan task 
of "healing" the crack in the rotor. He 
missed, then, what transpired every- 
where else on the Arachne. But he didn't 
mind that, either, knowing that Mary 
Purdy would give him the facts when 
both were free again for a session of talk. 

V. 

WHAT HAPPENED in the belt 
promenade, and the lounge, and the bar, 
Mary Purdy told Josh McNab later, in 
strictest confidence, with many peals of 



laughter — only at the time it happened 
it wasn't by any means a laughing mat- 
ter. First, Mary — while McNab hand- 
over-handed it up the staircase, swing- 
ing first over the stairs, then over the 
abyss of the Tunnel — got her hands on 
the knob of the door leading into the 
promenade. Then, by exerting unusual 
strength, in new and untried directions 
— muscles she'd never used before — she 
got her feet on deck, pushed the door 
open, and entered the promenade, clos- 
ing the door by a weird reversal of the 
opening process. 

Then, holding onto the knob, she stood 
and looked about her. 

Everybody on the promenade looked 
like people trying to walk under unusu- 
ally clear water. Even the movement of 
their hair resembled a weird "dance of 
the drowned". Jack Islip and his girl 
were trying to hang onto each other. 
The girl bent her knees and tried to 
fling herself into Jack's arms. 

Jack reached for her and missed and 
the young lady sailed up to the ceiling 
and gave her head a resounding crack. 
Jt effectually stopped her screaming, for 
it knocked her out. Jack reached up 
and tried to pull her down, and suc- 
ceeded instead in getting himself off the 
deck, and couldn't get back down again. 

Jack did the natural thing, then ; he 
swam around, harkening to the pealing 
of Mary's laughter — in which none of 
the other passengers joined. In the eye 
of her mind, Mary could see passengers 
in their staterooms, rolling out of bed 
and not being able to reach the floor, 
and simply floating about and yelling 
their heads off. It struck her as very 
funny. But to them, it was only the 
frightful sensation of a fall — a fall that 
went on and on and must end in a fright- 
ful smash. 

Mary almost offered to help Jack pull 
the girl down and place her on a divan, 
but decided against it. Let the little 



Save several cents a pack! Try Avalon Cigarettes! Cellopliane wrap. Union made. 



22 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



hussy float! She was surer than ever 
that this was the proper caper when 
Jack, turned clear around at last, looked 
at her with such a glad light in his eyes 
that her heart turned clear over and then 
started hammering as though it would 
suffocate her. 

But she stopped laughing, for the rest 
of the passengers were in a state. Some 
of them understood, vaguely, some 
didn't. Some of them thought they were 
at sea, and that the belt promenade had 
been flooded — and were both relieved 
and terrified to find that they could 
breathe in the strange element in which 
they swam-walked-floated. 

But faces were white as death. Man 
is born fearing only two things — and 
one of these is falling. Nobody said 
anything, probably because nobody be- 
lieved it possible for them to talk. Mary 
wondered what would happen if the per- 
petually partially inebriated tried to 
drink from bottles, and the liquor 
wouldn't run out. It would be disap- 
pointing, no doubt about that, and cer- 
tainly conducive to the very latest in 
delirium tremens. She was glad beyond 
words that she had asked all sorts of 
questions of McNab and been patiently 
answered. Knowing what it was all 
about she could feel the weirdness of 
everything without being too frightened 
at the "falling" sensation. 

One thing was certain: McNab had 
effectually stopped the marines and the 
passengers from fighting ! It would have 
been worse than trying to fight on the 
ocean floor at three fathoms ! 

"Jack!" Mary called. 

"Coming, honey," he said. "If some 
kind spatial spirit will tell me how to get 
to you — and then will arrange for you 
to forgive me." 

"Let it pass, Jack," she retorted. 
"Seeing that woman hanging by nothing 
against the ceiling pleases me more than 
I can say. It practically balances every- 
thing!" 



IT DIDN'T help the nerves of the 
passengers any, or even the marines, 
when Parsons came, hand under hand, 
down the rail of the stairs from the first 
class passenger level, looking very fool- 
ish, and with his face beet-red. 

"Blast McNab!" he roared. "If I 
ever return to normalcy, and get my 
hands on that damn Scotchman! I'll 
break every bone in his head!" 

Mary laughed, and Parsons looked at 
her, and his face slowly cleared, even as, 
at the end of the rail, he went through 
all the queer contortions he deemed nec- 
essary to get his body into a position 
that might be called approximately nor- 
mal. Magnetic shoes were necessary 
only to the engineers, and they alone had 
them. This done, he gave a brief ad- 
dress to such passengers as were within 
sound of his voice. 

"I'm taking every precaution," he 
choked, "for the safety of the Arachne. 
My Chief Engineer made a stupid blun- 
der in stopping the motor to repair a 
crack in the rotor. In doing so, he ren- 
dered every one of us weightless. It's 
a queer condition, but quite harmless, 
if you don't try any broad jumps. If 
there is any danger at all, between now 
and the time when the motor is repaired, 
and we are under weigh for Mars once 
more, it's because we've slipped our 
force-lane, are out of control, and head- 
ing into unknown space. We may fetch 
up anywhere, or nowhere, depending on 
how long it takes that blasted McNab 
to make repairs!" 

"Then," said Mary, "our safety is in 
his hands, isn't that right?" 

"Yes, it is. He's the only man aboard 
with the knowledge to make repairs." 

"Then don't you think you might quit 
belittling him in front of everybody 
whose lives depend on his efficiency?" 

Parsons stared. It took some min- 
utes, but he got it finally, and a sheepish 
grin started to spread on his face. 
"You're right, Mary," he said frankly. 
"I've been stubborn and opinionated. 



• 



"HELL SHIP" 



23 



I'll admit it now, freely, to everybody, 
and to McNab when I get a chance." 

"And he won't be placed under ar- 
rest?" 

"No, damn it!" 

"I'm going to tell him!" said Mary, 
forgetting herself and kicking around to 
open the door, go back into the Tunnel. 
Fortunately she was hanging onto the 
knob when she jumped, or she might 
well have joined Jack Islip's girl on the 
ceiling. It scared her, and it scared 
Jack, a fact which she noted with im- 
mense satisfaction when she managed to 
get back to an even keel, more or less. 

Josh McNab and his men were busy 
repairing the crack in the rotor. Josh 
estimated that, with luck, the job would 
be done in eight hours, if everybody 
worked hard, and didn't lose any tools. 
The latter possibility wasn't a matter of 
grave concern, but if a man dropped a 
spanner it didn't stay where it was, but 
floated off on its own. That fact was 
no help,, rather a detriment to the trou- 
bleshooters. And the reason for no lit- 
tle hilarity. Someone proposed that, as 
an inducement to passengers in the fu- 
ture, one stop in mid-space should be 
made on every voyage, to show every- 
body what it was really like to get 
"space-legs." Josh hushed everybody, 
insisting that wasted breath mended no 
cracked rotors, and the work went on 
swiftly. 

Josh McNab ordered a thermite jacket 
placed around the area of the crack in 
the rotor. A mixture of aluminum pow- 
der and iron oxide, it glowed with a 
terrific heat when fired — well into the 
blue-white, and the metal of the rotor 
was fused again with a minimum of lost 
time. This done to Josh's satisfaction, 
the excess metal was ground off with 
motor-driven hand-grinders, a detail 
that took longer, until the rotor at that 
spot was round again. Then the area 
was heat-treated with a portable induc- 
tion furnace strapped around the shaft. 

It was a workmanlike job, finished 



in jig time. Now and again McNab 
barked an odor. His men worked witli 
a will, pleased with the way things were 
going and, frankly, after a while becom- 
ing a bit jittery about the matter of 
weightlessness. They became accus- 
tomed to looking down into the depths 
of the Tunnel without fear, and one 
man expressed his fear of later conse- 
quences aptly. "I'm afraid, sir, that this 
floating in space may get to be a habit, 
and that when we get back our weight, 
we're likely to forget and step right into 
the shaft, and get ourselves hurt at the 
bottom !" 

Josh, apparently in all seriousness, 
said that the answer to that was sim- 
ple. He thereby ordered them, each and 
severally, never at any time to go down 
the Tunnel save by the stairs or the ele- 
vators, on pain of dire punishment for 
disobedience of orders. That, he de- 
cided, would take care of the situation. 

When the job was done, on time al- 
most to the minute, Josh went head fore- 
most back down the staircase to the 
motor. Slowly he eased it into speed 
— but no weight returned. He had ex- 
pected none. 

AFTER EIGHT HOURS of de- 
lirium of sorts, the Arachne was going 
again. But whither? She had lost her 
force-line, simply gone off her gravita- 
tional "trolley", and had to get back onto 
some branch-line or other. 

Parsons explained it to the subdued, 
white-faced passengers. "We're — well 
if you've ever flown kites, and sent pieces 
of paper flying up the string to the kite, 
you understand our situation. We're a 
paper that's cut through and blown away. 
The space we traverse is filled with an 
immense number of 'kite strings' — lines 
of gravitic force, in fact — stretching like 
a web beyond imagination between all 
the planets, stars, every heavenly body. 
Where we are now, my friends, we are 
among the webs from Earth to Mars, 
Mars to Earth, Venus to Jupiter. If 



24 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



we can swing onto gravitational force- 
lines between Venus and Jupiter, we can 
follow them back to the point at which 
they cross Earth-Mars lines, and make 
a shift and go on with our work. Just 
at the moment, we're in the doldrums. 
We've got to accept the situation. Play 
bridge. Get drunk. Make love. Do 
anything, but don't get panicky. We'll 
get by all right., and there is no longer 
any danger." 

"You're lying!" said Mona McKel- 
lar. She was Jack Islip's girl, or had 
been. Now she had a bruise on her 
head and a bad case of jealous fury. 
"You know we haven't got a chance. 
We shouldn't believe the captain, any 
of us " 

McNab entered the lounge, where the 
conversation was going on, in time to 
hear Jack Islip interrupt Mona McKel- 
lar. And Jack said, "Shut up!" with a 
voice like the crack of a whiplash. "And 
if you don't shut up, I'll bat your ears 
down !" 

Mary Purdy may not have been ex- 
actly a lady at the moment, for she 
clapped her hands, audibly. And a man 
who didn't matter much otherwise, spoke 
up and said: "Listen you," to Jack 
Islip, "you can't talk to a lady like that 
with me around." 

"Just what," said Islip, "are you going 
to do about it? I'm responsible for this 
silly filly, and if she tries to start an- 
other panic on the Arachne, a kick in 
the teeth will do her good and save the 
situation !" 

"Why, you " The stranger 

launched himself at young Islip. Young 
Jack, his face suddenly exalted, half rose 
and met the attacker with a right to the 
button that stretched him on the deck. 
Islip floated away to the far end of the 
lounge. The stranger danced away 
loosely, somewhat after the manner of a 
dropped dummy on its way down. 

McNab, coming in to report to the 
skipper that everything was all right, 
ran right into this situation. He made 



his report, stated that he was now en- 
route to his quarters, as previously 
ordered, where he would consider him- 
self under arrest until the Arachne re- 
turned to her home slip at New York. 

Parsons turned red and roared out, 
"There'll be no malingering on the 
Arachne, Josh ! No sleeping in state- 
rooms when there's work to be done. 
So sleep what you need, but get back 
to work when you've had your share. 
Ah — and we'll forget everything else. 
At least / will. I hope you will. And 
I ask the passengers to forget a lot of 
things they've heard." 

"I'll never forget!" cried Mona Mc- 
Kellar. "Never! I'll sue!" 

"What's that?" yelled Jack Islip, 
drawing back his hand and advancing on 
his erstwhile sweetheart. She whim- 
pered and swam away hastily toward 
the reviving man Jack had knocked out. 
He held out his arms, very sympatheti- 
cally, to receive her. 

Thus was everybody satisfied, includ- 
ing Mona, who felt herself lucky to find 
a man at the exact moment of her need. 

VI. 

"JOSH McNAB," said Skipper Par- 
sons, "you are an incorrigible old coot! 
I feel sure that you could have brought 
the Arachne to port without the slight- 
est bit of danger." 

"Aye. sirr," said Josh McNab. 

The two were standing side by side 
in the control bridge. They sounded, 
if there had been any listeners to give 
the matter thought, like two people who 
had a very deep hatred for each other. 
Parsons' eyes were frosty, but McNab 
knew it was fake frost, somehow like 
the kind they made in Hollywood to 
save themselves the cost of trips to cold 
countries. McNab's eyes were twin- 
kling. 

"Can't you say anything but 'aye, 
sirr,' McNab? You go along with me 
all these years, saying as little as pos- 



"HELL SHIP" 



25 



sible, yet you can cause more trouble 
and discombobulation than all the rest 
of the crew put together. Now, my 
theory of the whole business is this : you 
wanted to help Mary get her man back. 
And so, you turn my ship into a kind of 
Cupid's kindergarten, and I'm not so 
sure 1 like it." 

Josh McNab didn't answer. He had 
learned long ago that Parsons had a 
quick mind, and that almost anything 
Josh said might conceivably be used 
against him — sometimes in embarrassing 
company. And this one he didn't like. 
He couldn't quite see himself as a naked 
Cupid with wings and a bow and ar- 
rows. The picture didn't somehow fit 
in with his idea of Scotch dignity. 

Besides, if he talked much, Parsons 
was inclined to mimic his brogue. Josh 
didn't especially mind that ordinarily, 
Parsons was terrible at it. So the less 
he said the less he'd have to account for 
when the final reckoning was in. And 
this talk of turning the Arochne into a 
Cupid's kindergarten filled Josh with 
uneasiness. It came quite too close to 
the truth. 

He knew, officially, how he stood with 
Parsons. All right — or he wouldn't be 
on the control bridge now, waiting for 
the Arochne to do her gentle "somer- 
sault" for the lowering away to Mars. 

The shift from the Jupiter -Venus 
force-lines to the Earth-Mars lines had 
taken place with no trouble whatever. 
Moreover, with the motor going great 
guns again, and the great density of the 
Jupiter- Venus lines they'd ridden a 
while, the eight hours were going to 
be made up. The Arachne woidd be 
warped into her Martian slip right on 
time. That was a great saving, for if 
she were not, she'd have to stand off 
Mars until the right city came under her 
as Mars revolved. The Arachne-type 
gravity ships went up or down, but they 
had to be towed to move sidewise. Thus 
the lost time, unless made up, could eas- 
ily double itself. However, that would 



not happen now. The gods of inter- 
planetary space were working with Josh 
McNab, Mary Purdy, Jack Islip, and 
Skipper Parsons, to say nothing of the 
sturdy old Arachne. 

"Have I the captain's permission to 
visit the bridge, sir ?" came a calm, clear 
voice. 

SKIPPER and Chief Engineer turned 
for a look. Without waiting for Parsons 
to give an affirmative answer, Mary 
stepped into the control room, followed 
by a sheepish Jack Islip. 

"It is against the rules, Miss Purdy," 
said Parsons, "for passengers to step 
onto the control bridge. You will re- 
move yourself and your man Friday at 
once." 

Jack Islip started back in some alarm. 
Mary snapped at him. 

"Stay where you are, Jack. The skip- 
per's bark is far worse than his bite! 
With or without permission, Captain 
Parsons, I'm going to stick with the 
bridge through the somersault. When 
does it happen?" 

"Right away, Mary," said Parsons. 
"And I am calling your attention to a 
rather obvious fact — obvious to anybody 
but a man in love, Jack Islip — that this 
young woman calmly overrides the au- 
thority even of an interplanetary Captain 
of a Caperton ship — the Arachne, no 
less. She rules the roost with calmness 
and complacency. So she will rule, I 
insist, in her home — which you will be 
deceived into believing, if you're soft and 
a bit screwy, is also your home. It 
isn't. Not at all. Mary will boss you 
and make you like it." 

"I shall like it," said Jack Islip defi- 
antly. 

"Then, my friend, you're a gone gos- 
ling. Am I right, Josh McNab ?" 

"Yon skipper is alway richt!" said 
McNab, in a voice which showed plainly 
that he actually thought the skipper 
never was. Parsons choked and his face 
got red, but he forgave Josh because he 



26 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



could see that he was outnumbered. 
"But 'ee's a bit daft in his richtness, at 
times." 

Parsons, having studied his charts a 
bit, and satisfied that he had readied 
about the right spot in space, stepped to 
his inter-level address microphone. Mc- 
Nab grinned and winked at Jack and 
Mary as Parsons straightened his uni- 
form and his body, as though, by speak- 
ing into the microphone, he were preen- 
ing himself before the eyes of a large 
bevy of admiring females. 

"Ladies and gentlemen." he said, "it 
is now time to reverse ship and lower 
away for Mars. Will you be kind 
enough, for a few minutes, to hang onto 
something, while I about ship? I'll give 
you five minutes to get set, no longer. 
Then, before you know it, fhe worst will 
be over, and we'll be settling toward 
Mars instead of diving into it head 
foremost." 

Josh McNab had dropped back to the 
Tunnel by the time Parsons had finished 
his speech. Mary and Jack Islip 
grabbed at what they could find — in- 
cluding each other. Parsons went back 
to his controls, and kept an eye on his 
watch. Mars looked to be above the 
ship. But in less time than it took to 
tell about it, Mais was below the ship, 
and the Arachne was crawfishing down 
the Martian lines of force. 

"It's like shooting an arrow," said 
Parsons, "that turns in the air and hits 
the target with the feather end. Now, 
to tell the passengers." 

He stepped to the inter-level micro- 
phone again, barked : "Carry on, every- 
body. It won't be long now — thanks to 
Josh McNab and his black gang!" 

Which struck McNab as being pretty 
decent of the skipper, except that he was 
overdoing the coals to Newcastle, and 
making himself out a fine tolerant figure 
of a man. When he had Parsons alone 
he would point out this fact to him. As 
though Parsons didn't know already! 

Ah, a bonnie lass and a fairish red- 



headed lad ! They made a fine picture, 
standing there together, waiting for the 
Arachne to make port. 

THE TURN completed and the rotor 
humming smoothly as it eased the liner 
"down" to Mars, Josh returned to the 
bridge. "If ye gang to the belt prome- 
nade," said Josh McNab, "ya maun see 
the helycopters coom oot to warrp the 
Arachne in." 

Parsons grinned at him. "Go along, 
Josh, I know you like to watch it, too. 
Come to think of it, why should / 
miss it?" 

"With a' th' wimmin to wutch, skip- 
per, why should ye?" snapped Josh 
McNab. 

So the four rode down to the belt 
promenade, where Parsons could run 
the Arachne as well as anywhere else, 
and stood against the ports, looking 
down the bulge of the Arachne 's hull. 

"Yon they coom !" said Josh McNab. 

Mary spotted them, too. The other 
passengers also clung to the ports, to 
watch the coming of the helicopter tugs. 
They came like tiny sparrows, winging 
up to the Arachne. McNab's eyes 
glowed. So did Parsons' — though his 
dignity prompted him to try and look 
stern, unbending and unconcerned. 

For a few minutes longer the Arachne 
was the concern of McNab and Parsons 
— until the tugs fastened onto the hull. 
And McNab, never more conscious of 
the Arachne and his pride in her, looked 
up at the ceiling, above which were the 
passenger staterooms in their many and 
various shapes, their modern — reason- 
ably — serviceable beds, closets, beautiful 
furniture altogether. In the. eye of his 
mind he could peer up the narrow inside 
of the ship, threaded through its heart 
by the Tunnel and the Tunnel's intesti- 
nal investiture, and see each room, each 
section of his beloved ship. 

And in the ear of his mind, when he 
had made the mental journey, he could 
hear the whispering of the thrust-spread- 



"HELL SHIP 



27 



ing girders, telling him that all was well. 

Also he could see his crew, in the 
Tunnel, resting on their oars, so to speak, 
and filling the Tunnel with tall lies of 
how each of them in his own way had 
saved the Arachne and all her passen- 
gers from sure destruction in time of 
near-disaster. 

And then the helicopters were maneu- 
vering about the Arachne for position, 
and the ship was in the hands of her 
friends. The captain, in a word, had 
relinquished command to the pilot. 

Now there was nothing to do but wait. 

MARY STOOD by Josh until most 
of the passengers had debarked. Then 
she grabbed his ears, pulled him down 
and kissed him again. 

"Ye're a grrrand mon, Josh !" she 
said softly, with stars in her eyes where 
he had seen so much misery. 

"Hey, you, Mary," said Jack Islip, 
"what's the idea of kissing that old coot 
when you could have me for the asking?" 

"And why, laddie," said Josh McNab, 
to cover his embarrassment, "should yon 
lassie be foorced to ask?" 

Hand in hand, the two started for the 
exit. They stopped to permit Mona 
McKellar and her new swain to precede 
them. Mary giggled. Jack Tslip un- 
ashamedly put an arm about her waist 
and squeezed. Josh McNab felt a slight 
reddening of his ears, and tried not to 
look at the skipper. 



Skipper Parsons snorted. "Cupid'si 
kindergarten. Teacher McNab, shall w< 
go ashore ?" 

Josh had enough of being embar- 
rassed. It was time to embarrass some- 
one else. So he yelled to Jack and 
Mary, before all the passengers could 
get away, and there should be no one to 
hear. 

"There's a bonnie meenister aroond 
th' furrst corrner to th' richt, Murry, 
Jock ! Do ye see him at once, baith of 
ye, an' tie the knocht befoor th' next 
fight !" 

It fell flat. They didn't get embar- 
rassed at all. They started on the run, 
after one swift glance at each other, 
"around the first corner t« the right." 

"Weel, anyhoo," said Josh, sighing, 
"yon laddie didna try to kuss me!" 

"I noticed that, Josh," said Skipper 
Parsons, "but they'll be going back with 
us, and I'll suggest to Jack Islip that 
you felt hurt, slighted and snubbed that 
he did not." 

Josh McNabb glared at Skipper Par- 
sons, and bit off his words as well as a 
Scotch engineer could. 

"I dinna doot ye'lf do it, sirr !" 

Parsons glared back. 

"And will you take it like a man and 
an engineer of the Caperton lines, as 
it is your duty to take whatever your 
captain hands out?" 

"Aye, sir, that I will; but I willna 
like it !" 




Try PROBAK Juniors— 
and make your shaving 
money go further. Four 
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No wonder thrifty 
buyers everywhere give 
WAVING EKES I p r o bak Juniors out- 
fOR lllc / standing preference. 



PROBAK 

JUNIOR 



23 




S flOME 

by A. B. L. Macfadyen, Jr. 

A boy sails out, trapped in an unmanned spaceship 

A man, years later, sails back armed with a mighty 
weapon to sweep Earth clean again 




The great beam swept across the planet, cleaning Earth of the 
green scum of living stuff. 



29 




I ILENCE. It was the Northern 
Manitoba summer and heat lay 
heavy among the old pines of the 
thick wood, and flattened the water of 
the narrow creek. Fourteen years old, 
Jason Grant sent his little canoe cau- 
tiously up the creek, and wondered why 
he kept looking over his shoulder. 

Lake Athapap lay behind him. Ten 
miles away his father was perspiring on 
the beach in the hot sunshine. Jason 
wondered why a professor of physics 
should be so keen on finding pre-glacial 
Indianware that would disprove the 
orthodox view of the Mongolian origin 



30 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



of the early Americans. Jason didn't 
mind ; vacationing in the wilds of Canada 
was much better than spending the hot 
summer among the canyons of Chicago. 

But this sudden silence worried him. 
Just half a mile back there had been 
mosquitoes humming noisily, and par- 
tridge shooting up among the trees, and 
once he had seen a jumping deer. Here, 
there was not a sound but the water 
dripping from his paddle, and the sound 
of his own breathing. He didn't like it. 

He sniffed, lifting his brown face to 
the soft wind that stirred among the 
trees. There was some sort of alien 

smell to the place ■ And that stuff 

on the trees — was that moss, or some 
sort of greenish slime ? He put in to the 
side of the creek, and his hand went out 
to a patch of the stuff. 

He stopped that hand in mid-air. Tt 
was slime — nasty, viscous stuff like 
heavy bile. 

Jason — his father had not remotely 
suspected that one day his son would 
wander a Stardust path infinitely wider 
than that of the Hunter of the Golden 
Fleece — went back to the middle of the 
stream. He felt safer there. 

Suddenly he wanted to go back. He 
murmured, "There's something here I 
don't get." and dipped to turn. But 
then a whiteness strewn among the trees 
a short distance up took his eye. He 
stared. He sent the little canoe shoot- 
ing forward. Excitement rose in him. 
Those looked like skeletons. 

Stepping distastefully among the dis- 
eased trees, he suddenly recoiled in hor- 
ror. They were not skeletons. They 
were things infinitely more hideous. 
Once they had been something like men, 
though with alien, abnormally heavy 
skulls and great, stooped shoulders. 

Now! The boy's stomach turned 
over in revulsion. It looked as if all 
the bone, all the hard, firm matter in the 
bodies, had run out like wax melting. 
These were flaccid bags of skin and 
fast-rotting flesh, flattened and loose and 



entirely revolting. Jason took a second 
glance and turned before he should 
vomit. 

The flash of sunshine on metal be- 
yond the thick trees caught his eye in 
turning. He stared. About a hundred 
feet away were patches of bright steel, 
seen between the obscuring, slime-hung 
trees. 

He hesitated. Then, lithe as a cat, 
lie ran carefully between the high old 
pines. Not once did he touch the stained 
bark. The silence was thick and hot. 
Jason leaped nimbly over a deadfall. 

IT LOOMED above him now. It 
was vast and smooth and cylindrical and 
the boy had not the faintest idea what 
it was. Thick windows were fused into 
the metal sides. Trees had already 
begun to lace branches over it. The 
shining bulk was dim in the shadows. 
Jason decided to go around to the other 
side. 

But then he came to a strange, high 
doorway, perfectly round. The door 
to fill the aperture was a perfect disk, 
half rolled into a slit in the framework. 

He decided to look inside and climbed 
up over the rim. Within ten feet was 
another round portal. Beyond, he found 
a long corridor, silent and still. Lights 
set in the ceiling burned dimly, steadily. 
The boy wondered how long they had 
been burning. 

Jason shivered suddenly. He didn't 
like the look of the corridor. Turning 
back to the door he noticed a little round 
light set into the wall. Experimentally, 
he fingered it. 

And beyond, the outer disk sighed and 
slid shut. A fraction of a second later, 
the inner disk closed, too. 

Jason bit his lip and fought clown the 
panic which suddenly closed like a cold 
hand about his heart. He rubbed the 
light again. He twisted it. 

Nothing happened. 

Of course ; there would be another 
light somewhere. He looked around, 



JASON COMES HOME 



31 



keeping his eyes away from the distant 
bend of the corridor. If anything came 

around that bend He saw a panel 

in the wall opposite the closed door. 

Within were strange switches. One 
of them looked something like the light. 
He put his hand over it — and cried out. 

Far away in the depths, machines had 
suddenly come to life with oddly human 
screams. It brought the hair erect on 
the boy's neck. An instant later the 
floor seemed to rise up and strike him 
as a tremendous acceleration made his 
legs like things of rubber. 

He lay for a moment, then struggled 
erect. He would have to go down that 
corridor. He started off, trembling and 
wide-eyed — and came to a window. 
Eagerly he looked out. The sight of the 
trees and the squirrels would help him 
to quiet 

But he saw a blackness without end, 
a vast velvet backdrop for the infinite 
stars which were like a million cold eyes 
watching him. Only that he saw, and 
the blinding disk of a sun that seemed 
to shrink even as he watched. Only 
the stars and the Sun, and the silver- 
dust glory of the Milky Way, clear and 
sparkling beyond belief. 

Jason stared and stared, until his 
eyes were blurred with stars. Then he 
slid to the floor in the first faint of his 
life 

THE BOY flattened against the 
doorway and stared into this great room 
at the heart of the speeding ship. His 
eyes were dazzled by a thousand flash- 
ing lights ; his gaze was blurred by try- 
ing to follow a hundred spinning things 
at once. Here were the machines which 
were sending the great craft flicking 
through the emptiness beyond the Solar 
System. And there was not a single 
living thing to tend to them. 

It was a week after he had unwittingly 
thrown the ship into space. After the 
first terrible shock, Jason had rallied. 
Room by room, corridor by corridor, he 



had slipped through the hurtling vessel, 
expecting at any instant to be discov- 
ered by living replicas of the beings 
whose boneless bodies he had found 
among the trees. 

He had found nothing living — noth- 
ing but a tiny red squirrel which still 
eluded him. He had searched until he 
was dead with weariness. The ramifica- 
tions of the great ship seemed endless ; 
he had lost his way, gone in circles, 
countless times. 

He judged that it was two days later 
when he found the storerooms close to 
the keel of the ship. He had eaten his 
fill of the strange synthetic foodstuffs ; 
some of them had made him violently 
sick. He had gone on, exploring the 
upper decks, the living quarters 

There were a thousand things he did 
not understand. He walked in a per- 
petual wonder, bothered by a fear of 
the unknown that was not to leave him 
for many months. Even now, staring 
into the flashing color and motion of 
the power plant, he kept looking back 
over his shoulder. 

Cautiously now, he went into the vast 
room, weaved among the towering, 
humming bulks until he came to the 
center. Here was an enormous thing. 

A vast hemisphere of thick, trans- 
parent metal housed gleaming motion. 
Jason pressed against the glassy sur- 
face. His father had taught him ele- 
mentary physics thoroughly, but this 
meant nothing to him — yet. There was 
a coruscating point of light, so small it 
was almost invisible. He could not bear 
to look at it. Great, slow-moving arms 
of reddish radiance weaved from it, like 
sucking arms, moving with a curious 
impression of titanic, chained power. 

Jason moved away. He jumped sud- 
denly. Something had stirred in the 
doorway. Then he saw it was only the 
squirrel and tried to smile, tried to call 
to it. But he could not speak. 

Slowly, because the acceleration still 
made his body leaden, the boy moved 



32 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



out of the engine room. It was time 
to eat again. For a moment he saw 
the full horror of his plight. He could 
wander forever. Nothing to do, day 
after day, but eat. For years — then he 
would die— sleep after a living death 
locked here 

He began to cry, great tears rolling 
one by one down his face. 

On the following day he found the 
library. 

It was a small, book-lined room be- 
hind the control room. There were ta- 
bles, and a queer machine in one corner 
with headsets and an audio speaker. 
Jason took down some of the books. 
He opened one. turning the thin metal 
pages, looking at the strange script, and 
the alien, oddly frightening diagrams. 

In one book he found nothing but 
pictures. They were scenes of terrible 
war. frightful carnage and blood. They 
showed squat, big-headed creatures bat- 
tling nameless monsters with flames — 
green, thin flames. Or strange suns 
and stranger planets with green skies, 
under which white roads carried cu- 
rious machines, speeding. 

Jason put the books back. He didn't 
like them. He went to the machine in 
the corner. Among other things, there 
was a headset, and a light that glowed 
above a screen. He put on the headset, 
wondering, and played with the switches. 
Nothing happened. He put a book on 
the screen, under the light, wondering 
why he did it. Then he tried the knobs 
again. 

Jason froze suddenly. A voice was 
whispering in his brain: "Translating 
these equations into words, the ratio of 
the concentration of H plus in the two 
acids at the same dilution is the square 
root of the dissociation constants " 

Jason looked around wildly. The 
room was empty. The voice went on. 
He snatched the book from under the 
light. The voice stopped. 

The machine had converted the un- 
known script into English! 



Jason, that lithe boy, stared around 
at the book-lined walls. What secrets, 
what knowledge, must be here! And 
here was a translating machine. 

Could he learn enough to find his way 
back to Earth? 

JASON GRANT, eighteen, mur- 
mured in Simian: "Who was it father 
used to rave about — Dirac? Something 
about space being an infinite sea of nega- 
tive energy — not convertible to work. 
Tiny fragments raised to positive energy 
levels became electrons and could be 
detected by the work they did. The 
hole left was a positron — which is why 
they only exist for a fraction of a second. 

"The Sirn had the same idea, but en- 
larged it to include all atomic particles ! 
Protons, neutrons, inertrons — which are 
unknown to Earth. Matter is thus 
formed of particles of positive energy, 
loaded with potential work. Reduce 
it to negative energy levels — and all 
that work is freed ! What an idea !" 

There was a half smile of wonder on 
his wide lips as he leaned his powerful 
body against the transparent housing of 
die main power unit and watched that 
ineffable spark in the heart of the twist- 
ing beams of pure power. He shifted 
slightly. Muscles like steel cords rip- 
pled under the green tunic. The con- 
stant acceleration — twice Earth's gravity 
— had built those sinews. 

Jason, with Pete, the squirrel, on his 
shoulder, looked around the now- 
familiar bulks of the other machines in 
the great engine-room. Now, barely 
four years after that unwitting boy sent 
himself hurtling into deep space, he 
knew them as well as he had ever known 
his old outboard motor. There were 
the air-conditioners, the integrator, 
ranked transformers and generators and 
accumulators, banked feeders for the 
great cannon. 

It had been slow, tedious and heart- 
breaking work, the gaining of that 
knowledge. His father had taught him 



JASON COMES HOME 



33 



much physics, even some calculus. But 
the strange metal books of the Sirn, 
with their weird script and even weirder 
diagrams, had been the advanced refer- 
once texts of the picked crew which had 
manned the scout. 

Jason had begun at the end of sci- 
ence. Calculus, tensors, matrices, de- 
terminants — he had struggled with those 
summits of mathematics before he could 
solve a simple quadratic or prove the 
binomial theorem. He had plunged into 
a theory of atomic structure a thousand 
years ahead of terrestrial ideas before 
he understood a simple static generator. 

Then slowly the chips of darkness fell 
away, and confidence came. Day after 
day, month after month, he studied. 
There was nothing else to do. Within 
the first week he had finished his ex- 
ploration of the ship. Nothing to do, 
as the great silent vessel leaped on 
through the interstellar wastes, and the 
miles lengthened into light years, but 
delve deeper and deeper into the books 
of the Sirn. And they worked direct 
on the mind — indelibly. 

"The Sirn." Leaning there against 
the plant housing, Jason whispered the 
name to the squirrel chattering on his 
wide shoulder. That was what, in their 
own language, the beings who had built 
and manned this ship called themselves. 
The Sirn. It made Jason think of shad- 
owed valleys, and snakes rising beneath 
the moon. 

He whispered, for the hundredth 
time : "But why were they there, among 
the trees, with the door open and the 
ship empty ? Why had they come ? 
What happened to them?" 

HE SHRUGGED, nearly dislodging 
Pete. He turned and strode away to 
the small but perfectly equipped astro- 
nomical observatory in the bow of the 
great scout. He felt sure it was a scout. 
The books spoke of other craft sent to 
other systems. 

There, at the controls of the great 



electronic telescope, he scanned space, 
as was his habit, for several minutes. 
Endlessly, he watched for the Sun — for 
the most bitter thought, the thing which 
turned sour all his new powers, new 
learning, was this : He still did not re- 
motely know where he was. 

A month after that frightened boy had 
resolved, somehow, to get home, he had, 
recklessly enough, managed to reverse 
all the controls. The great ship should 
have doubled back on her tracks exactly, 
but the months had passed and no sign 
of his own Sun appeared. Desperate, 
fearful of traveling hopelessly beyond 
the Solar System, Jason had locked the 
controls and set the ship in what he had 
hoped was a great curving path. But 
now, four years later, he was quite lost. 

There were charts. But the Simian 
charts oriented with respect to the sys- 
tem of the Sirn. Since he did not know 
either its position or his own, he could 
not calculate a course on their basis. 
The Sun, he remembered from his fath- 
er's talks, was a Class G Yellow. In 
the great charts of the Sirn there were 
five thousand Class G Yellows. Many 
lifetimes to search them all 

He turned away from the screen 
showing the infinitely remote, cold sil- 
very eyes of the stars — never yet had he 
seen a planet — and ran off a few spectro- 
grams of nearer stars, for practice. A 
few minutes later he was studying the 
still-damp prints — yard-long strips of 
thin metal, crossed with thousands of 
dark lines. Abstractedly, he measured 
a few lines with the photo-electric 
micrometer, and entered the data in the 
charts. 

In the charts 

Jason, eyes widening, whispered sud- 
denly : "That's it ! Why didn't I think? 
They've got the fingerprints of every 
star within a dozen light years — includ- 
ing their own! I can pick out their sun 
by its spectrum ! Why — no, I can't do 
it with our Sun — haven't the data. But 
I can find the Sirn's, head for their 



34 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



system — and land and ask where this 
scout was heading for!" 

The youth's eyes glowed. 

Hastily he riffled through the charts, 
then stepped to the spectograph files. 
In a minute the spectrum of the Simian 
primary was in his hands. He slipped 
it under the selector of the telescope, and 
set the tremendously powerful eye scan- 
ning space in all directions. When the 
cross hairs centered on a star whose 
dark lines coincided exactly with those 
on that spectograph, the telescope would 
halt and signal him. And no two stars 
had the same spectrum. 

TWENTY, Jason Grant sat in rub- 
ber cushions before the main electronic 
screen and studied a small white star 
almost in the center of the field. He 
smiled wryly. Two years. The home 
star of the Sirn had been even farther 
than he had thought. Only after many 
long weeks of patient scanning of the 
millions visible had the telescope picked 
out that unimportant-looking Class F 
White. 

He murmured to Pete — now a little 
slower and a little grayer: "And what 
if they don't like us, friend? They'll 
let us land — their own ship — but when 
they see who's in it, what then ? Maybe 
they'll think we've pinched it " 

He crossed to the controls of the ten 
millimeter transmitter — a set which, 
housed in a perfect vacuum, was capable 
of flashing signals across distances up 
to half a light year, with a velocity many 
times that of radio. He knew how, too 
— the books of the Sirn had told him. 
Electric waves, retarded by a static 
gravity field, were accelerated by a 
synthetic, spinning one, much as deu- 
terons were accelerated by a rotating 
magnetic field. 

He threw current into the great heat- 
ers. Iridium filaments seemed to vanish 
under the enormously high frequencies 
• — bordering on the visible band — being 
impressed on them. He punched out a 



general call on the now-familiar symbols 
on the keys of the teletype. 

Then, leaving the circuit of the re- 
ceiver closed, he went away to the li- 
brary. 

FIVE MONTHS later the white star 
was an enormously brilliant point on the 
main screen. A day later he plunged 
in past the orbit of the sixth planet, then 
on the far side of the sua. 

Heading directly toward the fifth 
planet, Jason reflected with rising ex- 
citement that this was almost as good 
as being home again. Home! There 
was an inexpressible longing within him. 
He thought of the green fields and windy 
hills of Earth, and lakes calm in the 
heat, and the traffic on Michigan Boule- 
vard at five o'clock in the afternoon 
when the shadows were rising up the 
sides of the buildings 

He sighed, muttered, "I've got to get 
back," and turned his attention to the 
controls. 

The fifth planet became a disk with 
unnerving rapidity. Jason worked fu- 
riously at the switches. He lacked prac- 
tical experience of the problems of work- 
ing in the confines of a system. The 
ship slid rapidly at the greenish planet. 
The misty sphere leaped alarmingly 
about on the screen. 

It was no use. Jason gave it a wide 
berth. He had too much velocity. He 
leaped past the planet like a flash of 
sunlight. For an instant there were 
seas and continents on the screen, and 
he reached hurriedly for the controls of 
the automatic cameras. 

As the scout flicked on toward the 
fourth planet, sunward, he ran the films 
through the developing tanks and pro- 
jected the positives on a viewing screen. 

The best plate showed part of a city. 
Even with the highest power of the 
telescopic camera he had been unable to 
get much detail. But still, even if 
pedestrians were invisible, aircraft 
should have been seen. They were not. 



JASON COMES HOME 



35 



Jason studied the faintly greenish, toy- 
sized buildings on the white screen, and 
felt disquiet stir in his mind. It was 
an empty city. 

He sighed faintly and went back to 
the controls. 

He had better luck with the fourth 
planet. He managed to circle it within 
its own atmosphere. Seas, here, too — 
the Sirn had not sent scouts to find 
more habitable worlds. And continents 
and islands — quite like home, except that 
there seemed to be no cities whatever, 
and little vegetation. He did not drop 
lower than a mile. From that altitude 
he decided that the greenish aspect 
everywhere evident was due to some 
characteristic of the sunlight. 

Curious. He went on to the next 
planet, the third. 

But it was a duplicate of the fourth. 
Jason wondered about the possibility of 
landing and exploring further. He de- 
cided against it. He would search the 
system for living, talking beings. He 
murmured, "What the devil — is this the 
Sirn system, or not? If that confounded 

selector has picked the wrong sun " 

and leaped away to the inner two planets. 

A few hours later, utterly and com- 
pletely baffled, he was lancing out 
through the system again, heading for 
the sixth planet. Of the two inner 
planets, one was long since airless and 
scorched to ash. The other, to him, 
seemed habitable, but it was quite empty 
of life. 

Jason sighed, and his brows knotted 
in worry. To have come this distance 

on a fruitless chase He watched 

his last chance grow rapidly on the 
screen. 

A clear thousand million miles from 
the Simian sun, Planet Six yet received 
sufficient heat from that white primary 
to make it appear green and comfortable 
according to Earthly standards. Rip- 
ping in through the atmosphere, Jason 
studied glinting seas of emerald, and the 
slow-moving white clouds with pleasure 

AST— 3 



mixed with high anxiety. If this world 
proved empty 

He dropped quite low and sped to the 
temperate zone. It was full daylight 
here and the land was green in the sun- 
shine. A trifle too green, perhaps. 

A disturbing thought was beginning 
to tug at Jason when suddenly faint 
distant outlines of high spires, buildings, 
appeared out upon the horizon. Eagerly 
he set his course for them. He mur- 
mured to Pete: "If there's nobody in 
sight, I'll land anyway. They must have 
libraries, records " 

A HIGH-PITCHED whistle broke 
off his words. He spun. The radio, 
silent these past months, had suddenly 
awakened ! He reached out and shut 
off the signal note as a deep voice sud- 
denly filled the room. Simian ! 

"Turn, stranger, turn and flee!" the 
voice rang out. "Know that the very 
air of this planet is most foully and 
hideously tainted. Instantly, if you wish 
to stay alive, rise beyond our atmos- 
phere! You will still hear me." 

Jason, who had frozen in amaze- 
ment, hesitated, then shot the scout into 
the heavens until the barometer regis- 
tered zero pressure. After a minute the 
voice went on. 

"Have you heeded me? I cannot tell, 
I am not observing your ship. I who 
speak am already dead. My recorded 
voice is reaching you on the waves of 
an automatic transmitter, set to radiate 
whenever a craft comes within a thou- 
sand miles of this planet. I may be too 
late even now, depending upon your 
speed. 

"Listen, then, to what I have to say : 
"I am the last living thing in this 
solar system. I leave this record on the 
tape with my dying breath. This is the 
planet of the Sirn, most advanced race 
in this system. We held out against the 
Swarm while lesser races melted in 
death. 

"It was a bare twenty years ago that 



36 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



the Swarm was first seen, a dark cloud 
against the stars. The curve of the great 
cloud — of dust, as we thought — was 
plotted. It was found to intersect the 
course of our system. Ships were sent, 
to explore the cloud. They never came 
back. 

"Then the cloud, the Swarm, appar- 
ently as harmless as dust on a summer's 
day, rushed down upon these planets. 
Four, first to meet it, was swallowed, 
then appeared again. And not one trace 
of life could our most powerful telescopes 
discover on it. Vegetation, low animal 
life, had been utterly wiped off the sur- 
face of the world. 

"For that Swarm, that hellish dark- 
cloud, was a vast horde of ultra-micro- 
scopic bacteria spores, driven by the 
enormous radiation-pressure of cosmic 
rays ! 

^Plotting their path back into tine 
depths of space, our astronomers deter- 
mined their origin. In some dark, 
abiogentic manner, they had come into 
existence in the black heart of a colossal 
calcium cloud near G-883, some five 
thousand light years distant. And in 
that fact lay the explanation of their car- 
nal appetites. 

"Calcium was essential to their metab- 
olism ! Calcium — the principal mineral 
ingredient of animal bone and insect 
shell! Entering the atmosphere, the 
spore walls rupture, and the nameless 
contents emerge, to take on their in 
fernal and eternal hunt for calcium ! In 
the heat of our system, germination takes 
place with abhorrent speed. Our at- 
mosphere is rank with the things. 

"Their pathological effect on living 
things is a matter of seconds. The 
internal bones, calcium drained from 
their very hearts, slump instantly into 
things of jelly ; the body becomes a bag 
of skin. Life lingers. Then the skull 
crumples and flows like water. 

"Useless to detail the thousand at- 
tempts we made to defeat the horror. 
All ordinary measures were worthless. 



These bacteria are utterly immune to 
every extreme of heat and cold, pres- 
sure, or environment. They have no 
natural enemies whatever, and their size 
— approximating that of the virus — 
makes hermetical sealing almost im- 
possible. 

"We have sent scouts to neighboring 
systems, notably to the nearest,. G-458, 
but they have not returned. We fear 
the ships were infected. 

"So beware, stranger ! Seal your ship ! 
Do not venture out, but flee instantly 
beyond the confines of this lost system I" 

THE DEEP VOICE snapped off 
abruptly, and there was only the distant 
hum of the generators. Jason, his fea- 
tures strained by the frightful recital, 
buried his head in his hands. 

It was curious, but there was for a 
moment only one thought in his head : 
none here could indicate Earth on the 
charts, he could never venture out. 
Then full realization of what the other 
had said filtered through his gloom : 
"What an ass I am ! I'll wager 'G-458' 
was the Sun!" 

He lifted his head then, and tensed 
his legs to leap for the door. 

And saw Pete's tiny body on the floor 
not five feet away, with all the bones in 
his body like wax, still living faintly, 
and a greenish slime already rising 

Jason uttered a single terrible cry. He 
saw greenish slime form swiftly on the 
plaster of the walls. He sent his craft 
leaping away — anywhere — from that in- 
fested world. Then with horror prick- 
ling on his skin, he tore down the corri- 
dor. And did not stop until the full 
length of the ship was between himself 
and the control room. 

In a tiny electrical storeroom, with 
the door sealed by vacuum wax, he mut- 
tered, "Poor Pete! The damnable 
things must have seeped in through the 
bow there — I've suspected that place 
was leaking. And the walls — the walls 
are plastered ! Calcium carbonate ! Oh, 



JASON COMES HOME 



37 



Lord! They'll be through the entire 
ship in a few hours. What am I going 
to do?" 

He applied more wax to the door and 
walls. Used in sealing vacuum joints, it 
would keep out even the ultra-micro- 
scopic bacteria. But once they got to 
the stores — those calcium-laden vege- 
table concentrates — and the walls, car- 
bonated calcium oxide! Even now a 
tide of greenish slime was probably 
swelling down some distant corridor. 

Slime! 

Where had his thoughts been? In- 
credibly enough, it was only then that 
the memory of a forest hung with green- 
ish, viscous stuff hke heavy bile came 
back to Jason. He saw again five alien 
things lying boneless on the edge of a 
creek in Northern Manitoba. He 
groaned, "What a blind fool! This ship 
must have carried spores trapped on the 
outside hull when they went to Earth ! 
They would germinate instantly on land- 
ing, and trap the crew when they ven- 
tured out." 

He paced around the small room in 
restless strides. "It's been six years 

Old Earth — are you holding out? 

Let me think — let me think — there must 
be something they haven't developed im- 
munity toward, something they've never 
dealt with. He said all ordinary germi- 
cides and bacteriophages were useless. 
Space is their habitat. What never 
exists in space?" 

ALMOST INSTANTLY the answer 
came: "An electric current!" 

Jason stopped as if he had been 
struck. That was the answer! But 
how? Impossible to apply a minute jolt 

to each deadly germ He needed a 

spray of electricity. Charged dust 
particles — particles of steam — no, ions! 
Ions — charged atoms which would dis- 
charge on touching the loathsome ba- 
cilli, annihilating them with minute 
charges of static electricity. Could he 
fill the ship with ionized air? 



He could. Jason took a small 
emergency spacesuit from a hook. He 
began to plaster it with the vacuum wax. 
He would have to walk a hundred feet 
to the air purifiers in the great engine 
room. Fortunately the wax was a 
hydrocarbon, not a calcium compound. 
Unless the hellish motes smelled him 
through it 

His skin prickled and his toes shrank 
from contact with the floor. Jason went 
hastily down a corridor whose walls 
were festooned with creepers of green 
slime. Already it seemed that most of 
the calcium had been stripped right out 
of the plaster, leaving the other consti- 
tuents to evaporate as carbon dioxide. 
Bare steel frames showed. 

At any instant he expected his bones 
to go viscid and soft. 

The engine room — walled in steel — 
was almost free of the green mucous. 
Jason sealed the door with wax and 
went to work. Ionizing a gas, on 
Earth, was accomplished in a restricted 
way by discharging an electric current 
through it, or by ultra-violet irradiation. 
The Sirn removed the ion electrons di- 
rectly and completely with electric fields ; 
stable ions were produced in prodigious 
quantities. 

An hour later Jason was clamping 
huge electrodes about the great cylinder 
of the primary air purifier. He closed a 
switch. The steel of the conduit began 
to tremble. A distant crackling began, 
like lightning heard far away. The 
sound came nearer and nearer. Those 
were ions, discharging on walls and on 
— bacteria ? 

Jason tilted his head back within his 
helmet and stared at a patch of green on 
the plaster ceiling. 

Slowly, reluctantly, that patch faded 
to dust gray, then fell in tiny flakes to 
the floor. Jason hurriedly took a sam- 
ple, and examined it under an ultra- 
microscope. Just — husks. 

Weak in the legs, he collapsed into 
a seat near the power plant. 



38 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



AS G-458— a Class G Yellow which 
could only be the Sun — separated out 
of the silver-dust background on the 
green, Jason Grant worked long and 
intently on a great projector. The puls- 
ing spark in the heart of the power unit 
would furnish him with almost un- 
limited power — enough to pluck old 
Earth from her orbit and throw her 
crashing against other worlds, if he 
wanted to. 

He was trying to project the ionizing 
field as a great beam. Computation 
showed that it was possible, but the 
practical difficulties seemed endless. It 
was to be done simply by varying the 
relative positions of the electrodes, 
lengthening the fields. But that in- 
creased the field density in the neigh- 
borhood of the electrodes — where he 
did not want it. And lie had found that 
his success before had been largely luck. 
The tiny slayers were themselves coated 
with a wax that insulated against most 
ions. Only the intense, activated-nitro- 
gen atoms that had accompanied his 
ions had served to break down the waxy, 
otherwise-insulating shell. 

But he achieved a beam which satis- 
fied him a brief day before the scout 
streaked in past Pluto's orbit, and cut 
space toward the inner planets. In 
passing, he studied the four major 
planets. He had never seen them at 
such range before. Jupiter was a vast 
ball of ice, Neptune and Uranus even 
more frigid. Possibly there was life — 
he saw color changes on great Jupiter. 
All seemed free of the calcium bacilli. 

Mars was a distant red ball of deserts 
and scattered tiny seas. He caught a 
brief glimpse of a tiny distant city, glow- 
ing faintly near the north pole. He did 
not stop. There was that vast longing 
in him to see Earth again, to walk the 
hills of home — coupled with the black 
thought that he might be too late. 

He was. 

He came screaming in through the 
thick air of his mother world exactly 



six years and nine months after, help- 
lessly trapped, he had fled out through 
it like a shard of light. Dropping to five 
thousand feet, he circled the planet again 
and again, until the outer hull glowed 
faintly in protest. 

London — Paris — New York — Berlin. 
America — Europe — Asia — cold Siberian 

wastes — everywhere Tiny Pacific 

islands, and ships at sea, and trains 
stopped in the heart of deserts. He 
went, and look and searched. 

And everywhere the buildings were 
slumped, only steel frames standing. 
Everywhere the streets were empty of 
life, silent reaches strewn with debris 
of buildings and rusted surface traffic. 
Everywhere the greenish slime of the 
calcium bacteria. 

Black murder in his heart , Jason 
Grant drove away to the north. At 
the exact tip of Earth's axis, two hun- 
dred miles high in the thin twilight air, 
he snapped on his great ion beam. 
Down, down through that space the 
colossal conical shaft spread, turning air 
molecules to blue-glowing ions, and 
draining electrons back up and into the 
accumulators as negative electricity. 
Around the cone a wavering lemon-yel- 
low flame of activated nitrogen streamed 
upward, stripping the bacteria of protec- 
tion, letting the killing ions reach them. 
Its base rested on the frozen Artie Sea, 
and that base was five hundred miles 
wide. 

Face pale and set, Jason sent the scout 
spinning in a slow, tight spiral about 
Earth. Slowly, day by day he crawled 
through the thin air, tracing an over- 
lapping path about the world, sweeping 
with his broom of ions and yellow 
nitrogen flame the green-festooned sur- 
face of Earth. 

And after his passage the green slime 
crumbled to gray dust, and blew away 
in the wind which roared in the wake 
of that great beam. Gray dust — empty 
husks without life — fragments of cal- 
cium that gathered in great clouds 



JASON COMES HOME 



39 



against the Sun. 

In ten days he was finished. Not a 
single cell escaped his all-penetrating 
beam. 

SO THE WORK was done— but the 
world remained empty. 

Dully, unseeing, Jason Grant sent the 
scout gliding slowly through the washed, 
pure air toward California. He set it 
down on a hill swept by the wind. A 
hill already greening with new grass. 
For the first time he stepped out into 
the sunshine and air of his home planet. 

Home ! He took a deep breath of the 
clear air. and his lips twisted wryly. 
The word mocked him. Home — to an 
empty world. 

He lay down on the cool grass. The 
sun began to draw the weariness from 
his body. In a few minutes he was 
sound asleep. 

After a while he seemed to be dream- 
ing. He was flying through space with- 
out suit or ship. Ahead was a single 
green planet. He had to reach that 
planet before it died. It seemed to be 
dying even as he watched it, and sud- 
denly he was running over a green 
meadow with enormous horrors pursu- 
ing him. They were giant, alien bac- 
teria. The foremost reached his ankles, 
tugged at them, shook his shoulder 

Jason Grant's eyes came open. There 
was a girl over him. Her hands were 
on his shoulder. She was laughing and 



crying and trying to speak at the same 
time. Her clothes were torn but she 
was dark and lovely. Beyond, racing 
up the hill, were five men and two other 
women. One of the men had silvery- 
white hair that shone in the sunlight. 

"How did you do it, how did you do 
it!" the girl was saying. "Oh, this is 
wonderful, this is — oh " 

Jason blinked. This was not the 
dream. This was real. He reached out. 
His strong hand touched her arm. He 
said, "I thought everybody was dead 
on all the planet " 

"We're from Mount Wilson," she 
managed to say. "The bacteria reached 
us last — we managed to seal them out 
of the domes. We've been living there 

for And then we saw the ship, 

and saw the bacteria die, and we've been 
trying to catch you ever since. We saw 
you land — Mount Wilson is just a few 
— the road, I mean — and we had the 
cars Here are the others!" 

All talking at once, the others panted 
up the hill. The man with the white 
hair put out his hand: "Magnificent! 

How did you do it ? That beam ■ 

Where did you get the ship?" 

Jason suddenly smiled. Strength and 
new courage came racing back to him. 
There might be other observatories 
which had escaped. The world was 
clean and new. They could build again. 

Standing there on the wind-swept hill, 
he began to tell them. 



i: 
I 





^nrit n single-edge ■ 

3 1AJHL BLADES 4,0*10* 

FOR GEM AND EVER-READY RAZORS 



40 

FOOD FOR THE 



Martian Colony Dead 

The Emergency Relief Expedition 
found the colony on Mars dead to the 
last man. Dr. Dexter described the 
scene with difficulty. All deaths, he 
said, had taken place with acute phys- 
ical and mental anguish 

While death was attributable to 
starvation and exposure to the strange 
effects of the distant planet, he pointed 
out that toxic poisoning and psycho- 
logical fear had shattered the colony's 
morale to such extent that ordinary 
physical and emotional stamina was at 
extremely low ebb. 

Terse comments in the colony logbook 
showed the bitter, losing struggle of the 
scientists and miners during final weeks. 
Food was getting low when they saw 
the explosion of the first relief ship in 
space, but they grimly battled depression 
and carried on their work. With the 
unexplained disappearance of the sec- 
ond relief ship their spirits fell precip- 
itously, but they holed up, conserving 
heat and oxygen and energy. 

The real breakdown of moral fibre 
came with the peculiar, inexplicable 
cessation of interplanetary communica- 
tion. Shattering the last remnants of 
self-control, the colony fell under the 
terrible depressive spell of complete de- 
tachment from Earth and the knowledge 
that they might be marooned forever. 

Supply books, kept right up until the 
end, show a sharp rise of food and oxy- 
gen consumption after that jarring re- 
alization. Had the immediately previ- 
ous rate of consumption been main- 
tained, at least some of the expedition 
might have survived to witness the ar- 
rival of Dr. Dexter's relief party. 



Human Difficulties Stop 
Venus Development 

Professor Dietz reported at least six 
precious minerals could be mined al- 
most on the very surface of Venus. The 
difficulties, he said, are not mechanical, 
but human. The peculiar properties of 
the planet have the immediate effect of 
disorienting the human body to an ex- 
tent producing extreme nervous disor- 
ders within seventy-two hours. 

"It would require at least ten years — 
very possibly two generations — to orient 
Earthman to Venusian conditions," he 
announced. "It would be absolutely im- 
possible to transport sufficient supplies 
to maintain a colony for that period if 
human beings could withstand the utter 
loneliness and peculiar conditions of the 
planet for that period." 

Questioned as to the possibilities of 
raising food synthetically on Venus, the 
aged scientist shook his head negatively. 
Something along the order of artificial 
culture might be done, he said, but the 
food would not meet the complete needs 
of man under strange conditions for 
such periods of time. He pointed out 
that even on Earth it is necessary for 
man to live on fauna and flora funda- 
mentally indigenous to the locality. 

The scientist himself had been aged 
unbelievably by the trip. He estimates 
that during his eight-month absence 
from Earth he aged about twenty years 
nervously and forty years muscularly. 

Space Neurosis Halts Lunar 
Work 

The World Interstellar Development 
Project announced today that further 
plans for the conquest of near-by bodies 
in space have been discontinued. While 



FIRST PLANET 



Thomas Calvert McClary 

suggests that reaching the planets may not be half so 
hard for Man as living on those planets. 




". . . Relief Expedition reports Martian colony dead to the last man. 
Fear, lack of food and oxygon ended the bitter tos'mg. sfrrwggfe. , . .** 



42 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



vast deposits of vital minerals were dis- 
covered on the Moon, this is the 
eighteenth expedition to return empty- 
handed. 

"We have found no means of over- 
coming what we may loosely term space 
neurosis," Secretary Davis stated. "Ap- 
parently, the orientation of the human 
body to foreign conditions is not feasible 
at present." 

Chief Engineer Thompson pointed out 
that throughout history, development 
has been possible only with a backbone 
of agriculture. He mentioned various 
diamond, gold and silver mines, known 
to be rich, which have been abandoned 
because of the difficulty of getting men 
to live in uncivilized areas for extensive 
periods of time. 

"The only solution to the problem," 
he said, "is planet farming. Give men 
a means of adapting themselves to life 
on foreign planets and real development 
will follow." 



WE DO NOT have to go wholly into 
the future to surmise what will be the 
greatest problem of instellar develop- 
ment. We have the word of history. 
In no area on Earth at any time in 
known history has there been progress 
and development without the background 
of a self-sustaining local agriculture. 

The really great bonanzas — the gold, 
silver, diamond and mineral strikes — 
have been few. The vast majority have 
been skimmed and abandoned before real 
proof of their unmined wealth. Of those 
mines profitably operated, most have 
been on slave labor — real slavery, or 
economic slavery. For one reason or 
another, men who actually worked the 
mines were forced to do so. 

No real development, that is no actual 
production of new wealth and a sus- 
tenance of population, has grown around 
or followed the mineral strikes — except 
where agriculture advanced simultane- 
ously. Eliminating this latter group and 



giving any nominal cash value to hu- 
man life, raw gold has cost very nearly 
its refined value in the long run. 

It is probable that more real wealth 
has come from timber than from gold. 
It is certain that where vast tracts of 
straight timber once stood greater de- 
velopment followed the stripping than 
where the earth is dotted with petered- 
out mines. Agriculture followed— pro- 
gressed hand in hand with — timber strip- 
ping. 

This is not to say that mining is not 
necessary. But it bears a heavy cost, 
and nobody has estimated the ultimate 
costs when mines are worked out. Min- 
ing produces no security for the miner. 
When the mine peters out he must move 
on to find other work, or become de- 
pendent upon other workers. 

Take note that it was not the gold of 
'49 which made California one of the 
wealthiest areas on Earth. It was agri- 
culture, the actual development of the 
land. It was people moving there to 
live. 

In northern Rhodesia, today, are im- 
mense mineral deposits— many of them 
known and surveyed. There is room 
and mineral wealth there for literally 
millions of men and women. But there 
is also the tsetse fly, bringing death and 
sleeping sickness over sixty per cent of 
the rich country. Cures for sleeping 
sickness have been discovered, but no 
preventative for man or man's domestic 
animals has been found. 

In short, no farming in that area is 
yet possible. Working mines three 
months a year and a farm nine might be 
profitable for all concerned. But why 
not work the mine twelve months? Cli- 
mate has much to do with that. And 
something more. It would be expensive 
building a railroad simply to bring sup- 
plies in and move the ore out for a hand- 
ful of mines alone ! So expensive there 
would be no profit, and at best, living 
conditions would not be pleasant. 



FOOD FOR THE FIRST PLANET 



+3 



But picture that same railroad serving 
many farms along its route. And the 
commerce between farmers. Towns 
spring up, the wilderness is pushed back : 
there is trade and profit and develop- 
ment. Mines, farms, supply towns, rail- 
road, all suddenly produce wealth. In 
the assurance of being able to produce 
a subsistence for themselves, some 
frontier farmers also make strikes and 
become rich. 

EFFORTS to combat the tsetse 
problem were made by Wynant Davis 
Hubbard. While the fly slaughtered 
domestic animals after each rain, and 
there appeared no way to control or ex- 
terminate the fly, the wild life of the 
area lived immune. . Hubbard started 
crossing wild animals with domestic 
stock. He crossed Herefords with the 
savage Rhodesian wild buffalo, and Ro- 
lands with the bush pig. 

He tamed elephant, lions, the forty- 
pound Rhodesian cat. Only the local 
cat could defend itself against the wild 
animals of the district. Rhodesian mice 
and rats destroy more crops than all the 
locusts put together. 

Bit by bit, he was successful. His cat- 
tle herds were tractable and began to 
produce high quality beef and milk. 
Cross-bred pigs began to show signs of 
heavy pork. Pet lions and tamed wild 
dogs acted as watch dogs — and learned 
to leave domestic stock alone. The 
tsetse came and as usual killed off the 
innoculated domestic cattle — but the 
cross-bred cattle maintained the im- 
munity of their wild forebears. 

The example would have application 
at home. Take the hoof-and-mouth epi- 
demic among Western cattle. The wild 
bison and deer which once roamed the 
plains had no trouble of this sort. The 
hoof-and-mouth disease was finally con- 
quered among domestic cattle — by 
slaughtering all the cattle that had or had 
been near diseased animals. 

Modern man is not as intelligent 



about some matters as his uncivilized 
forebears. It is only within recent years 
that he thought of cultivating blackber- 
ries, blueberries, strawberries. For 
years, a great many thought Luther 
Burbank was crazy. In spite of all our 
knowledge and mediums for the dis- 
semination of information, you still find 
thousands of otherwise-intelligent farm- 
ers struggling to raise some foreign plant 
where it will not flourish, while they de- 
stroy an indigenous plant which might 
be cultivated to commercial uses. 

It is well established among drinking 
men that the liquor to drink in any 
given locality is liquor made from plants 
native to that soil and climate. If you 
want to keep your broad-minded, but 
conservative, grandfather from seeing 
pink elephants in the tropics you don't 
serve him beer. You serve rum. A 
good glass of Irish whiskey which would 
serve to stave off chill and cold on the 
Emerald Isle would probably knock you 
into a cocked hat in the middle of the 
Sahara. 

When the time comes that Earthmau 
roams the interstellar spaces, the big 
problem is going to be food and farming 
on foreign planets. Take Mars, with its 
minus 60 temperature and exceedingly 
rare atmosphere, so rare that the high- 
est reaches of our stratosphere yet con- 
quered have atmosphere one hundred 
times as dense. 

Man will stand the cold without dif- 
ficulty. Mars is exceedingly dry and 
60 below zero is not uncomfortable in a 
dry climate. Twenty miles out of New 
York City the mercury has dipped 
nearly that low several times in recent 
years. Forty below is not unusual in 
the West. The Byrd Antarctic Expedi- 
tions lived for many months with tem- 
peratures ordinarily around that — and 
men skied without shirts on calm days! 

BUT SOMETHING has bothered 
all expeditions into our polar wastes. 



44 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



Diet. Even with every aid and all the 
knowledge of modern science, a slowly 
cumulative depression has usually over- 
taken men. In the Antarctic there are 
no natives for comparison, but in the 
Arctic the native Eskimo is a happy, in- 
telligent human who lives largely on 
blubber and raw meat. White men vis- 
iting those regions have tried the near- 
est possible cooked diets. Where their 
diets were short on fruit and vegetable 
juices, they developed scurvy. Where 
their diets were as well rounded for 
their particular bodies as science could 
manage, they still were overcome by a 
gradual nervousness, or seriousness, 
which is not inherent to the natives of 
the polar area. 

This has a very definite significance. 
The civilized scientist with his scientific 
diet is not as efficient a mechanism, in 
comparison, as the native Eskimo under 
polar conditions. Many generations 
have oriented the Eskimo to his bleak 
surroundings and theoretically wrong 
diet. Probably several generations 
would be necessary for white men from 
the south to orient themselves to the 
Eskimo diet. But even where white 
men have lived in the same regions for 
many generations, they do not surpass 
the Eskimo in intelligence and stamina 
to the extent which might be expected. 

The first Earthmen to visit other plan- 
ets will have a vastly greater orienta- 
tion to go through. For many decades, 
their required work will be prodigious. 
It. is not likely that foods which served 
them on Earth will completely meet the 
requirements of strange climates and in- 
tangible effects. It may be necessary 
for them to spend many years for ori- 
entation alone, and men other than sci- 
entists will not do this for achieve- 
ment alone. 

•The only inducement to bring colo- 
nizers to planets will be a chance at 
fortune plus a backbone of self-sus- 
tenance— -the opportunity to continue ex- 
istence and family line if something goes 



wrong; the opportunity to build and 
develop the planet if things go right. 

At the outset, food has a triple value: 
to give men energy to work under tre- 
mendous changes ; the guarantee of life 
and not starvation if contact with Earth 
is broken ; the development, not the 
stripping, of the planet. 

Food supplies, of course, will be car- 
ried. But we do not think these foods 
alone will meet physical and mental re- 
quirements. There is probably a plant 
life of some sort on most planets, but the 
human body will require time to orient 
itself to the digestion of. such plants. 

The answer is tank agriculture, the 
artificial production of Earth foods on 
other planets, combined with adaption 
of planet foods to Earth palates. Man 
will have the diet he is used to while 
learning to use planet food. Slowly and 
moderately he will eat a little more of 
the feed native to the planet which will, 
to some extent, compensate for the stag- 
gering body drains of a strange mode 
of life. In event that communication 
with Earth is lost for a time, man will be 
safe, have at least the requirements of 
living. 

How vital this matter of emergency 
living is, may be imagined from our own 
Antarctic. Expeditions visiting these 
wastes, with all their radios, airplanes, 
complete apparatus for communication 
and transportation, prepare themselves 
to withstand four years of marooned 
life, though planning only a two-year 
stay. How much greater the chance 
that early planet expeditions may be cut 
off for a generation or more ! 

IT IS PROBABLE that there is 
flora on Mars. If there is animal life 
also, it is, in Earth measurements, al- 
most motionless. The slowest of the 
sloths would be comparative lightning. 
It has either immense lungs or some 
breathing apparatus so efficient we can- 
not imagine its workings. It is living 



FOOD FOR THE FIRST PLANET 



45 



on atmosphere approximately one-thou- 
sandth that of Earth. Very few Earth- 
men can live in atmosphere one-tenth 
the density of sea level! 

The lush places, the gardens of Mars, 
would be the North and South poles 
with their nine-month summers. This 
was brought out in detail in one 
Astounding science article. The utter 
dryness of Mars is almost beyond con- 
jecture. There is a hoarfrost at the 
two poles during the winter night. This 
is the nearest thing to rain the planet 
knows. Flora would necessarily be of 
a type which could absorb this frost as 
it melted in the early spring, drink it in 
greedily, for it would be its only damp- 
ness of the year. 

There might be other flora requiring 
little or no moisture. We cannot con- 
ceive of such on Earth, but doubtless 
a Martian could not conceive of any ani- 
mal wasting quarts of water daily. On 
any other part of Mars except the poles, 
flora would be immensely tough, might 
even contain some chemical heating 
plant of its own, for the daily fluctuation 
of temperature would be upward of 100 
degrees ! 

Presumably, this flora would be tre- 
mendously tough, or infinitely delicate 
and dry. But we do not know this and 
it is highly uncertain to conjecture too 
much. Even a laboratory producing 
synthetic conditions might not tell us. 
We have such a laboratory to study the 
little matter of the human lung's re- 
action to carbon-monoxide gas at alti- 
tudes above 14,000 feet. All we have 
learned from these experiments is that 
a synthetic test is usually very inter- 
esting — and wholly unreliable. 

It is easier to work retroactively in 
nature than progressively. If we fol- 
low the natural laws witnessed on Earth 
that have to do with altitudes and 
depths, chemical content of earths, peri- 
ods of rain and sun, etc., then the flora 
of Mars would be what we would call 



low-type. It would be far easier to 
adapt Earth flora to Martian conditions 
than vice-versa. 

The means would very likely be sim- 
ilar to the dirtless farming developed by 
Professors W. F. Gericke and Arthur 
C. Pillsbury in California. Professor 
Gericke grew 26 bushels of potatoes in 
a ten-foot tank, equivalent to about 2,600 
bushels per acre. At that rate, a 9-mile 
square farm would supply all American 
spud-eaters with their annual quota with 
three crops per year ! 

Professor Gericke's "farms" were 
wooden tanks ten feet long, two and 
half feet wide and ten inches deep. The 
tanks were filled with water and cov- 
ered with wire netting on which was 
spread a half-inch cover of shavings or 
excelsior. Into each tank goes a fer- 
tilizer unit — a bottle containing soluble 
salts of calcium, potassium, magnesium, 
iron, copper, manganese, nitrogen, phos- 
phorus, sulfur, zinc and boron. Elec- 
tric heating cables keep the tank at the 
desired temperature. 

The professor has raised a hundred 
different crops by this means. Tobacco 
plants grew 20 feet tall ; corn, tomatoes 
and other vegetables were giants and 
declared superior in every way to nat- 
urally grown prize produce. 

HOWEVER, the professor's method 
employed natural sunlight and air. This 
would have to be compensated on Mars, 
the "farms" being covered tanks sup- 
plying extra light to make up for the 
weakened natural sunlight. With due 
care, there should be no blight, but there 
might be some danger of tank explo- 
sion at first, as it would require several 
generations to orient Earth plants to 
growth in rarer atmosphere and lower 
pressure. Whether the plants would ex- 
plode or not on being taken from their 
artificial pressure culture is a moot 
point. Some deep-sea plants cannot 
even be brought to the water surface in- 



46 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



tact, while others from as much as a 
mile and a half depth come up without 
any great alteration. 

Adapting Martian plant life to hu- 
man Earth palates would be accom- 
plished by similar means. Rays, short 
waves and chemical dampness might 
stimulate the arid flora to much greater 
growth. than Earth plants, or afflict them 
with a damp-rot. It seems logical, how- 
ever, that food consumed by bodies liv- 
ing under artificial near-Earth pressure 
and air density would have to be grown 
at somewhere near the same pressure. 

We don't know this for certain. We 
do know that animals and birds captured 
at a high altitude and fed on low alti- 
tude food — bugs and animals of the same 
families — usually die, while if fed on 
their native food they are likely to sur- 
vive. The same applies to fish. Oddly, 
the body seems better able to adapt it- 
self to new surroundings than does its 
digestive system and metabolism. 

The difficult part of artificial culture 
of Martian plants for human digestion 
would be the danger of their getting too 
much oxygen and pressure. It would 
be far easier to grow Earth plants on 
Mars than vice-versa. But on Mars the 
lichen and extremely rooty growths of 
that planet could possibly be made to 
feel at home in the artificial pressure 
and ray and chemical farms in one tenth 
the time it would take to culture Earth 
plants to survive natural Martian con- 
ditions. All the changes for the Mar- 
tian plants would be giving them more 
of their requirements for living. 

These Martian plants would most 
likely be highly exotic in both appear- 
ance and flavor. They would be burst- 
ing with the wild riotous colors of the 
Painted Desert and highly spicy to taste. 
Ultimately, they would constitute a chief 
Martian export, a highly prized luxury 
food and condiment back on Earth. 
They might have important medicinal 
properties and be valuable for glandular 
treatment and blood building. Un- 



doubtedly, they would have many chem- 
ical uses, dyes and scents immediately 
coming to mind. Their natural state 
would be of such complete dehydration 
that simply powdered, they would take 
the minimum of transport space. 

There is little doubt that they would 
be almost vital over a period of time to 
human life on Mars. They would aid 
immensely the orientation of Earth 
bodies to Mars conditions, at least, by 
all the natural laws we know. Many lo- 
calities of the world are devoid of im- 
portant foods, but this is the result of 
floods, fires, or natural phenomena 
which have not been rectified. In any 
locality a healthy basis of diet is the 
food nature supplies there. 

But in the case of human beings vis- 
iting Mars, there is the problem of an 
Earth body eating an absolutely foreign 
food. Martian conditions demand Mar- 
tian energy and immunities, but Earth 
bodies demand Earth food. As a matter 
of probability, Earthmen would be 
allergic to some Martian plants at first. 
And yet equally probable, Earth foods 
alone, whether carried or grown on 
Mars, will not supply an orientating 
body with all necessities. 

THE CHEMICAL TANK and sci- 
entific farming is the answer. With 
one set of tanks, Earth food will be 
grown to live and perpetuate itself on 
Mars. Another set of tanks will culture 
Martian flora to life under quasi-Earth 
conditions. As the plants are sped 
through generations, they will slowly de- 
velop some similar characteristics. Prob- 
ably the high plateau cacti, some of 
which have considerable food content, 
and the high mountain lichens would be 
first to show adaptability to Mars. Like- 
wise, the Martian plants would develop 
characteristics akin to the cacti first. 

When the point arrives where the two 
may be crossed, interstellar explorers 
will offer a prayer. They will have a 



FOOD FOR THE FIRST PLANET 



47 



food with the necessary properties of 
Earth, and with the additional native 
properties of Mars — just as Huhbard 
developed an animal with the beef arid 
milk temperament characteristics of do- 
mestic cattle and the hardihood and im- 
munity of the wild buffalo. 

Conjure up a vision of what this 
means to planetary development. Not all 
men are born scientists, rinding their en- 
tire life wrapped up in some knotty 
problem. They grow nervous and rest- 
less and subject to fears in strange 
places which scientists are too occupied 
to have. Yet the scientist without those 
men is liable to be lost. His very con- 
centration on one problem may endanger 
his every-day living and survival. 

After the scientist comes the miner, 
the soldier of fortune. But soldiers of 
fortune are notoriously moody and 
strictly speaking, highly unbalanced. 
Possibly more than any other group of 
men. they will take a risk for profit or 
adventure — but they also know the 
meaning of danger and they demand the 



chance of survival. Fifty or a hundred 
million miles from home is considerable 
distance when there are no eats along 
the way ! 

Finally, there is the native instinct of 
race-survival deep in every man. The 
pioneer, the developer of a new land, is 
seldom the foot-loose type, wild west 
stories to the contrary. It is the fam- 
ily man who goes out and overcomes 
obstacles and sticks until success is won. 

There are plenty of men in the world 
today who might risk that first planet 
colonization. But they would want their 
families, at least as soon as they got 
started. And space is too big a piace 
to trust for food on transport schedule. 
They might dare extreme privation, a 
land without water, a land of vegetable 
diet, a land cold and extreme. But they 
would not chance a place without any 
food whatever. 

The most important man in the uni- 
verse to the Earth of interplanetary 
travel time will be another Luther Bur- 
bank. 



TANK AGRICULTURE experiments have shown that inordinately large crops can be produced 
on tiny areas. Soil serves two main purposes to the plant; It acts as a support and supplies needed 
minerals. Wire screens covered with straw can lake care of the first function: water solutions of 
minerals serve even better than soil in the second. Normally, the plant leeches the minerals present 
in the soil into a water solution, and actually absorbs that. Nutritionally, then, a water solution of 
minerals is its natural habitat. 

The mineral consumption of planta varies immensely, however. Such food-plants as potatoes, 
which consist almost entirely of carbohydrate material, manufacture their substance almost en- 
tirely from carbon dioxide and water. A few pounds of mineral substance dissolved in water will 
supply all the mineral nutriment for several tons of potatoes. The rest of the tuber's mass is 
extracted from the air and cheap water. 

Wheat, on the other hand, is sold comparatively dry. It has a considerable nitrogen and mineral 
content which cannot be derived from air, but must be supplied in the mineral solution. Therefore, 
wheat is not an economic food for tank agriculture on Earth, since hundreds of pounds of minerals 
must be supplied for each ton of food-stun*. 




This advertisement is not intended to offer aUoholic beverages for sale or delivery in any state or community where the 

advertising, sate or use thereoj %e unlawful. 



48 




The man, like his world, was rub- 
bery! When he walked, he actual] y 
bounced! 



OB DIXON raised his aching 
head slowly from the metal floor. 
His brain was on fire, and his 
couldn't register the surroundings 
clearly. He knew he must do some- 
thing, though the slightest movement 
sent excruciating pains through his 
bruised head, and the top felt ready to 
drop off. 

Broken pieces of the take-off harness 
still hung around his shoulders, parted 
by the terrific strain. The ends were 



49 




L ANET 



by Warner Van Lorne 

Picture a world where everything — buildings, machines, 



, even people — is rubbery 



still fastened to the metal frame of the 
control chair. 

There had been only seconds to spare 
as the Eagle tore away from the small 
planetoid before the collision. The force 
of landing the ship had evidently started 
the rock moving, and it was luck that 
he saw the smash coming before it 
bumped the other sphere. 

That take-off at full speed was too 
much for the old straps to stand. It was 
a wonder the space tramp had been able 
to stand the strain. But the old crate had 
done some fast traveling. 

Then his smile faded. The fuel gauge 
had caught in his blurred sight to drive 
away all dizziness. It registered less 
than sixty pounds of ronaline! 

He staggered to the tank in the hold, 
to examine that gauge. It registered the 
same! Once more he headed back for 
the cabin to shut off all power. 

It was a long time before he raised 
his face from his hands. There wasn't 
enough fuel in the tanks to carry him 
back to any space port — and he was 
heading out ! 

The solar universe lay far behind, 
where the Sun appeared like a bright 
star. It was impossible to calculate the 
distance the ship had covered while the 
fuel burned at full power. There had 
been plenty to take him back to port with 
the small deposit of valuable brock. On 
this trip he had felt lucky — and this was 
his luck! 

He didn't know where he was. Every 
star looked strange and different, and 
he must find some place to land before 



many hours. Sixty pounds of ronaline! 
All that remained of nearly one ton of 
the precious fuel. He didn't even have 
equipment that could signal Earth for 
help. The Eagle was an old ship and 
only luck and a lot of labor kept it in 
condition to use. 

Slowly his brain cleared. He wasn't 
licked ! He'd find some way of getting 
back. Perhaps there was an inhabited 
globe within reachable distance. His 
eyes searched space ahead. 

He had been at the very outer reaches 
of the Solar System and now was far 
beyond any charted space, beyond any 
hope of return without aid — and must 
keep on in the same direction! He 
couldn't stop the ship, turn it, and head 
back the way he had come. It wouldn't 
leave enough fuel to handle the ship 
and hold a set course. This way he might 
make a safe landing — if he found a place 
to land ! 

HE WAS heading directly toward a 
brilliant star which grew brighter with 
each passing hour. He ate several times, 
but his eyes didn't close again. He knew 
he must have Iain unconscious for many 
hours — possibly many days — to cover 
the distance that had been traversed. He 
was afraid to figure how long it would 
take to consume that terrific amount of 
fuel. It seemed impossible! 

Slowly, the brilliant star took shape, 
and solid globes appeared in a small sys- 
tem. One planet drew particular atten- 
tion. It had atmosphere! Every test 
of the spectroscope proved it, and it 



50 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



might be breathable. 

Several times the blasts lighted for a 
moment, to reset the course, but the fuel 
gauge «ank lower at each firing. Thirty- 
six pfunds ! It was hardly enough to 
make a safe landing. There had to be 
help ahead ! 

The small globe swung between the 
Eagle and its sun, as the ship ap- 
proached. The little world turned very 
slowly on its axis, and Bob knew the 
nearest side would remain dark for many 
days of Earth time — possibly months. 
Movement was only just visible, al- 
though many hours passed before the 
ship reached the outer atmosphere. 

The Eagle settled slowly through com- 
plete darkness. The blasts were hold- 
ing it away from the surface, to make 
sure it was over solid ground. Bob's 
eyes ached from straining into the land- 
ing lights. Suddenly the ship touched, 
and bounced away from the surface. 
Then settled back to rest quietly. 

For a long time the Earthman sat still. 
He was on an unknown planet without 
means of leaving. If he could breathe, 
the air — he could live. If not, he had 
reached the end of the trail. 

Slowly the fastenings of the port were 
loosened. He bit his lips as it swung 
open to allow the atmosphere to enter. 

His heart was in his mouth. It was a 
toss-up as to whether he would live, or 
die from some terrible poison. His 
lungs burned slightly, but after an hour 
they became accustomed to the change. 
He could breathe normally ! 

After a good sleep he left the ship, 
heading into the darkness with a flash- 
light and gun. The sooner he found 
whether there were living beings on the 
little globe, the quicker he would know 
what he faced. 

A few hundred feet from the ship he 
stumbled onto a road ! It was paved 
with peculiar material, but no stranger 
than the ground he had been walking 
across. It was resilient, rebounding at 
every step. The surface of the highway 



was tougher than the ground, but it was 
still not much harder than wet clay. He 
cursed it often and regularly as his 
legs ached from walking on the strange 
surface. 

When Bob saw brilliant lights com- 
ing toward him on the highway, he 
tumbled off the edge to land on the 
softer surface. He had to move fast to 
avoid the car which passed so swiftly 
there was little but a vague blur. 

It suddenly struck him that not a 
single sound had disturbed the silence 
since he left the Eagle! The planet was 
noiseless ! The passing of the vehicle 
left a creepy sensation playing tag on 
his backbone. It was a phantom, pass- 
ing in the dark! 

The silence was getting on his nerves. 
It was like a deserted world, with the 
ghost car flashing by. Little of its shape 
was visible except that it was long and 
hung close to the ground. The lights 
were brilliant, but the occupants didn't 
appear to have noticed him — if there 
were occupants. 

HE HAD BEEN walking for an hour 
when lights appeared from the direction 
the car had gone. He stayed on the 
road as the car came to a halt. The 
creepy sensation returned. When the 
door opened a resilient man jumped out ! 
He actually bounced when he landed ! 
His legs shortened, then gradually ex- 
tended to raise his body back to normal 
position. A simple robe was his only 
clothing. 

Bob could hardly believe the creature 
was alive. He appeared more like the 
image of a man that a child would mold 
in putty. But he seemed intelligent, and 
certainly the machine represented the 
work of a well-developed brain. 

When he smiled his face appeared like 
a rubber ball with the side pushed in, 
causing a wrinkle in the heavy surface. 
But with all of his strange appearance, 
he had a man's features. His ears were 
large and stuck out straight from the 



RESILIENT PLANET 



51 



rounded head. But his eyes, nose, and 
mouth, were the same as any man's. 
Each strand of hair was thick and curled 
in heavy ringlets. 

He watched the Earthman with as 
much interest as Bob displayed, but his 
examination was good-natured. Then a 
vibration, which at first seemed like the 
rhythm of a motor, penetrated to Dix- 
on's eardrums. It sounded like the hum 
of a taut rubber band .being snapped 
back and forth. Tf% man was speak- 
ing ! 

The vehicle was standing on runners 
which dented the surface of the road 
several inches. Both front and back of 
the car slanted down to the runners, with 
a small enclosed section in the center. 
The lights were on top of the body, 
about five feet above the road, and 
lighted the paving for several hundred 
feet ahead. 

When Bob entered the car, at the 
driver's motioned invitation, the step of 
the vehicle gave beneath his weight. A 
moment later, as they started forward, 
Bob could feel his hair try to stand up. 
The whole back of it sagged with his 
weight ! 

The small car picked up terrific speed, 
until they tore over the road faster than 
the Earthman had ever traveled on the 
ground. The machine seemed glued to 
the surface, and gave a feeling of se- 
curity. The rubber-man handled it with 
perfect ease, and turned to grin at his 
passenger several times during the trip. 
The highway was without defect, and 
the vehicle had almost unlimited speed. 

A slight glow appeared ahead and 
gradually changed to the lights of a 
large settlement. Until they were 
within a few miles, the lights remained 
below the horizon of the small world, 
then seemed to rise from the surface of 
the ground. 

The little world was so close to its 
sun that it would receive intense rays, 
and Dixon was suddenly thankful that 
he landed on the darkened side — even 

AST— 4 



though it was necessity instead of choice ! 

His mind jerked back to the surround- 
ings as the car entered the city. The 
Earthman could feel the whole 4Jehicle 
sway front, then gradually settle back as 
it came to a stop. 

None of the buildings were over six 
stories high. They stopped before one 
of the highest. In the bright light the 
rubber-man appeared greenish-yellow 
and slightly transparent. Yet upon 
closer examination his skin was opaque. 
Bob hadn't been able to see his coloring 
before. 

Everything was of the same substance. 
The car, the streets, and the buildings 
were elastic. Even the largest structures 
bulged at the bottom, from the weight 
above. 

Doorways sagged, and some of them 
slanted to the side. The windows were 
crooked. On the upper floors they were 
long, but toward the ground they had 
become short and stubby. The sight 
gave the Earthman a dizzy feeling, and 
he closed his eyes before looking a sec- 
ond time. 

Bob reluctantly followed the rubber- 
man into the building and the floor 
sagged beneath their weight. At any 
moment he expected the whole structure 
to melt with them beneath it. 

AS THEY walked up the resilient 
ramp, he wondered if the city was de- 
serted. It was strange that a place 
which could house several thousand peo- 
ple would have no sign of life. 

The clear material in the window 
openings sagged until it wrinkled at 
the bottom. Furniture and wall decora- 
tions were all affected by the general 
settling. Benches sagged at the center 
to nearly touch the floor. 

They went back down through the 
building after the man collected a few 
belongings, but still there was no sign 
of life. When they reentered the car, 
Bob was completely baffled. They must 
be heading for some other settlement. 



52 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



They stopped before a square post set 
at one side of the street, and the city 
behind them darkened ; every light 
turned out by a single switch. They 
were evidently the last people to leave, 
and all power was shut off at their exit. 

Hours passed while the small car tore 
over the road through the darkness. 
Several times the Earthman dozed off. 
The tnaterial of the conveyance was 
springy, and lulled him into peaceful 
slumber. Every time he awakened, the 
driver looked back with his broad grin. 

When their speed hardly lessened at 
a curve, the car seemed to stretch side- 
ways from the strain. Bob was wide- 
awake, and hanging on for dear life! 

The driver grinned even wider, and 
took the next curve at terrific speed. 
Bob decided that he wouldn't display 
uneasiness again, but he couldn't help 
grabbing for the nearest solid section of 
the car — only to have that stretch to- 
ward him ! 

They had been traveling for many 
hours when lights appeared ahead, but 
the driver showed no sign of tiring. 
This city was brilliantly lighted, and the 
Earthman realized that the other settle- 
ment had had only a small portion of its 
lights turned on. 

The streets were filled with rubber 
people, and the car drew between the 
buildings at a snail's pace. The women 
were decked with every kind of object. 
Little bright buttons were stuck in their 
hair, which curled the same as the men's. 
Their dress was colorful, and similar to 
a child's romper suit. The single plain 
robes of the men were a direct con- 
trast. 

They were like rubber dolls, with lit- 
tle round faces displaying perpetual good 
humor. The only other emotion their 
features registered was a pouty ex- 
pression. But even that didn't appear to 
be displeasure. 

When he climbed out of the small car, 
they crowded around. A humming sound 
came from many of the throats while 



they grinned at sight of the stranger. 
Some children came running and bounc- 
ing down the street with laughter on 
their faces, and he grinned back. It was 
infectious. 

The rubber-man led the way into one 
of the main buildings. It was in better 
condition than the structures of the de- 
serted city, but there were some signs 
of sagging. The floors were resilient, 
but the clear panes in the windows re- 
mained smooth. 

Everyone stopped to grin at the 
stranger. They seemed happy to see a 
human being, which was a matter for 
conjecture to Dixon. He knew they had 
never had intercourse with the Solar 
System. It was a new planet, unex- 
plored by Earthmen. 

After climbing up three stories on the 
sloping ramps, they entered a room with 
a rubber-man seated on a throne at the 
far end. He appeared the most con- 
genial of any of the creatures and, at the 
Earthman's approach, grinned until his 
mouth tried to stretch from ear to ear. 

Dixon jumped back — the man tried to 
rub his nose against Bob's cheek ! Then 
regaining his poise, he stuck his face 
forward to rub his nose against the face 
of the ruler. He couldn't help but think 
how much it felt like a rubber ball. 

THE STRANGER was accepted as 
an honored guest, and given the best of 
food. His living quarters were in the 
building with the ruler, but the inaction 
got on his nerves. He couldn't talk to 
anyone, and couldn't wander about as 
he pleased. They took him sightseeing, 
but wouldn't allow him to go alone. 

It pleased them immensely when he 
tried to imitate their vocal sounds, and 
the ruler appointed a man to instruct 
him. At first, everything sounded alike, 
but he slowly learned to repeat many of 
the words. They didn't understand his 
language, and it never entered his mind 
to voice anything in English. 

He must learn how to make his wishes 



RESILIENT PLANET 



S3 



known before he could explain what 
chemicals were required as fuel for the 
Eagle. Even then it would be hard to 
describe the spot where he had left the 
ship. 

They had mastered many intricacies 
of science in a world without hard sub- 
stance, using electricity for every pur- 
pose. Even the road-cars were driven 
by magnetism. There was not a single 
rotating part in any of the machinery. 
The wheel, a basis of Earth-civilization, 
was unknown. 

They gave Bob every delicacy, but he 
grew thin on food that reminded him of 
rubber-cement. It was too much like 
chewing gum to be appetizing because 
the flora of the planet was resilient in 
its botanic formations. He did enjoy 
the clear and tasteless water. 

One month passed, then a second, as 
Bob judged from the number of times 
he slept. With constant darkness, it was 
impossible to keep an accurate check. 
In the direction of the deserted city a 
faint glow began to show in the sky. It 
was only a short time before sunrise, 
and he awaited sight of the bright ball 
with longing. 

Recently, the buildings had begun to 
sag like those in the deserted city, and 
the natives hurried about their business 
with renewed vigor, as if expecting some 
great event. 

Finally Bob was awakened from a 
sound sleep by a rubber-man shaking 
him. He was hurried down a ramp to 
enter a car at the entrance. Before 
Dixon understood what was happening 
they were speeding along the road be- 
yond the city. Away from the glow in 
the sky ! 

The road was crowded with cars, all 
traveling in the same direction. A gen- 
eral exodus from the city — before the 
sun touched it with the terrific heat ! 

The rubber-men constantly ran away 
from the bright disc. They couldn't 
stand the rays of their own sun ! Roads 
completely circled the planet, with cities 



at intervals where they could live for 
a few months. The race had become 
migratory to overcome the slowly rising 
temperature as their world swung nearer 
the sun, and they lived the only possible 
life under the planetary conditions. 

Bob slept several times, and they 
stopped twice to eat during the trip. He 
knew they had come a long distance, but 
didn't realize quite how far until the sky 
ahead answered. 

They were facing the same glow that 
had been in the opposite direction when 
they left the city. The trip had carried 
them almost halfway around the globe ! 

The new city was much larger than 
the one they deserted, and accommodated 
people from many of the cities in the 
other zone. There were manufacturing 
plants of every type, and industries that 
the other cities lacked. The main work 
of the planet was carried on in this cen- 
tral spot, where they spent more time 
than anywhere else. 

Every member of the race gathered 
here, where the rubber-men had little 
time for the pleasures enjoyed during 
other sojourns. Half of the population 
labored in fields for many miles around 
the city, harvesting crops that were al- 
ready ripened. 

As soon as the fields were cleared, 
they were planted -again, and Bob 
watched the operation with interest. 
During the time they spent in the capital, 
they carried on every branch of agri- 
culture. The ripened crops were har- 
vested, to be replaced by new seedings. 
These were left for the effect of the sun, 
which carried their development to com- 
pletion before the population returned 
during the next dark period. 

THE BUILDINGS of the city were 
in perfect condition, yet they appeared 
to have stood for centuries of Earth 
time. Bob examined many of the struc- 
tures, without finding the slightest de- 
fect. 

One group of workers was busy over- 



54 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



hauling the road-cars, which were all- 
important to their existence. Other men 
worked on machinery brought from the 
deserted cities, to be returned in good 
condition upon their next trek. 

There were nearly a million inhab- 
itants in the capital, as every being on 
the globe was concentrated here during 
its occupation. They were distributed 
among several cities at every other sea- 
son. 

Even during the time they were car- 
rying on the work to provide for many 
months, a rubber-man constantly accom- 
panied Bob. He wasn't allowed to roam 
the city, but was taken by routes which 
avoided all main thoroughfares. At first 
he paid no attention, but it piqued his 
curiosity. 

He was gaining a conversational 
knowledge of the language, and could 
talk to his guide. But once he made 
the mistake of calling to the man in a 
natural voice. 

It was the first loud sound Bob had 
heard on the planet, and the results were 
phenomenal. The sound didn't echo or 
reverberate, but died out in silence a 
moment after he spoke. He noticed that 
the wall of the room was shaking vio- 
lently, as if affected by an earthquake 
— and the rubber-man lay unconscious 
on the floor! In the world without 
sound, his voice was dangerous ! 

It was several minutes before the rub- 
ber-man regained consciousness and sat 
up without realizing what happened. 
He grinned sheepishly at the Earthman, 
as if he had slumped to the floor asleep. 

When the wall of the room stopped 
shaking, Bob sighed in relief. The sound 
of his voice was too powerful for the re- 
silient planet, as every vibration of their 
world was below even a normal speaking 
voice. 

One day, while riding through the 
city, Bob jumped in amazement. He 
thought for a moment the occupant of 
another car was a human being. He 



must have been mistaken ! It was only 
a fleeting glimpse^-yet his mind kept 
returning to that half-seen face. It stood 
out as no other since he had been with 
the rubber-men. 

When he questioned his driver the 
man was so upset that he almost lost 
control of the car, and his grin entirely 
disappeared ! Then he denied it so pro- 
fusely that it raised suspicion. Perhaps 
there was more to that section of the 
city from which Bob was barred than 
he had thought ? He decided to find out 
in some way. 

After that incident he was allowed 
even less freedom. The suspicion that 
another of his race was on the same 
planet became almost conviction, al- 
though he could think of no reason for 
their hiding the fact. Why shouldn't 
they allow him to meet this stranger ? 

The people were so friendly it seemed 
improbable they would keep two mem- 
bers of another race separated. Cer- 
tainly the man in the other machine 
didn't know of his arrival, or he would 
have come searching — if he could ! 

In an alien universe seeing a man of 
one's own kind was a great event. Twice, 
while prospecting on some strange 
sphere. Bob had met men and each time 
there had been a celebration. Neither 
asked about the other's origin ; both were 
satisfied to meet their kind without ques- 
tion. 

The longer he was kept under strict 
surveillance, the more discontented the 
Earthman became. He learned to al- 
most hate the unchanging expressions of 
the rubber-men. 

THEN SUSPICION was forgotten 
in the search for fuel for the spaceship. 
His mastery of the language was suf- 
ficient so he could enter their labora- 
tories and study every process of manu- 
facture. When he found nothing that 
might replace rotwline his hopes 
turned to despair. When it came time 



RESILIENT PLANET 



55 



for the exodus from the city he was still 
•searching for the secret. 

He had learned to handle the small 
cars and could drive with confidence. 
Their operation was simple and almost 
trouble-free. They represented centuries 
of development, as the resilient materials 
of the small world had many drawbacks 
which did not exist on the solid planets. 

Discovery of one element had given 
them mastery of mechanics. This chem- 
ical dissolved one of the standard min- 
erals, creating enormous quantities of 
electric energy in the process. The two 
radicals, in combination, created a force 
which strove to push the car away from 
the surface. With the power released 
at the back of the vehicle, it moved for- 
ward at terrific speed. 

The sun had begun to light the sky 
behind. It was time to move on in the 
constant march with the darkened side 
of the world. He took turns driving as 
the populace headed for the next city. 

During the time they remained in the 
capital the buildings began to sag. By 
the time of departure they were in the 
same softened condition as those in the 
other cities at the moment of migration. 
While traveling, Dixon received the first 
explanation of the phenomenon from his 
companion. 

During the dark period, the planet 
absorbed moisture. It rained quite often, 
and the building material acted like a 
sponge. While the cities were deserted 
beneath the heat of the near-by sun, the 
surface dried out again. With the 
evaporation of moisture, everything re- 
gained its original shape. 

Dixon shook his head hopelessly. He 
understood what took place, but couldn't 
understand lioiv. Upon first acquaintance 
with the globe he thought synthetic rub- 
ber could be manufactured from the 
natural resources, but had found the 
composition useless. He couldn't help 
but think what a mess the little world 
would be if the sun didn't shine for one 
period. 



For once in his -life Bob had enough 
traveling. Always before he had kept on 
the move because of desire. Now that 
it was forced upon him, the pleasure was 
gone. He dreamed of the time when he 
could stay in one spot for months, with- 
out having to run away from the sun. 
The day he sighted the Earth again 
would be the happiest moment of his 
life — if he ever did ! 

A feeling of hopelessness crept over 
him. They had to move so often there 
wasn't time to develop a new chemical 
in the laboratories. It would require a 
lifetime of effort to accomplish what 
might be done in one year on Earth. He 
felt sorry for these beings who had to 
move constantly, yet they seemed to look 
forward to migration with pleasure — and 
the)' knew no other life. They were 
happy ! 

He passed many cars that were loaded 
more heavily, while some vehicles passed 
them. Bob recognized the car of the 
ruler as it passed. Their own machine 
carried a load of heavy machinery which 
made it slower. He was a regular in- 
habitant of the planet now, and helped 
with the work. It was a world where 
everyone labored, which partly explained 
their good nature. 

As a glow appeared on the instrument 
panel another car streaked by. Every 
other vehicle moved aside to give it 
room. As it passed, Bob glanced up. 
Then he gasped ! It was the human be- 
ing again — driving alone ! His mouth 
almost dropped open. It was a woman! 
The headlights of their machine lighted 
the interior for a moment and he had a 
plain view of the occupant. 

HE TRIED desperately to get more 
speed from the machine he was driving, 
but instead of accelerating, it slowed 
down. He was shouting! The rubber- 
man was unconscious from the vibration 
of the Earthman's voice ! The whole car 
was shaking. It wobbled and swayed 



56 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



until it required every ounce of Dijcon's 
energy to keep from smashing into an- 
other car. The girl was gone. 

It was an hour before the native re- 
gained consciousness. He didn't know 
what had taken place, but grinned good- 
naturedly as if he had fallen asleep for 
a few minutes. The car had stopped 
vibrating and was operating perfectly 
again. It was on the tip of Bob's tongue 
to hum to the rubber-man about the girl, 
but his lips remained sealed. He could 
do more if his knowledge remained a 
secret. 

They entered a city which might 
house 100,000 people, but nothing in 
comparison to the capital. The ma- 
chinery in the car was for use in the 
power building, and the Earthman 
helped install it. 

He was given complete freedom, 
which made him think the girl must be 
somewhere else. There was no way of 
telling where she might be, as he didn't 
know the location of the other cities. 

He couldn't understand why they 
wanted to keep him from knowing that 
the girl lived among them. Perhaps they 
were jealous of one of her own race, 
and were afraid he would try to take 
her away — which he fully intended to 
do! He would find a way of escaping 
from the little globe. 

Little communication existed between 
the cities. The people were content to 
wait for news until they returned to the 
capital. It seemed hopeless to try and 
locate the girl until the population again 
assembled all in the same place. 

One day Dixon was looking through 
the clear pane in the front of his sleeping 
quarters when a car came racing down 
the street. He still occupied an apart- 
ment in the building with the ruler, and 
knew it must be an emissary from some 
other city. It broke the monotony, so 
he hurried toward the ramp, interested. 

Three of the rubber-men came run- 
ning, to usher him back to his room. 



This move flashed the answer — the girl 
had come! 

Looking out again, much against the 
will of the three natives, he examined 
the car carefully. It had fast lines and 
might be the same machine that had 
passed him on the road. It was cer- 
tainly specially built. 

When he turned to look at the good- 
natured grins of his guards, they ap- 
peared almost worried. He was going 
to see who came in that car if it meant 
declaring war against the whole race. 
He shouted. 

The three men sank to the floor un- 
conscious, their grins still in place. The 
vibration of his voice caused instant 
slumber. The room shook violently. He 
didn't wait to see the effect, but headed 
toward the throne room. 

At the doorway he hesitated as four 
rubber-men ran toward him. He wasn't 
certain that he was discovered, but they 
must have felt the vibration of the upper 
floor. The girl faced the ruler. It made 
Bob smile to see her shake her finger in 
the man's face — and the ruler didn't ap- 
pear very happy ! 

Dixon was afraid of what might hap- 
pen if he was seen, and shouted again. 
The ruler slid to the floor, while the 
men who had been coming toward him 
rolled up like balls and bounced along 
the resilient surface. He and the girl 
stood facing each other — her expression 
one of disbelief. 

When he walked forward, she stag- 
gered back and the color drained from 
her face. She seemed almost afraid, and 
glanced around in a daze. Suddenly she 
slumped to the floor in a faint. 

A MOMENT LATER he was hurry- 
ing down the ramp with her limp form in 
his arms. Twice, rubber-men tried to 
stop them, and he left them unconscious 
from a shout. He was going to get the 
girl alone, where they could talk. 

Before any more natives caught up, 



RESILIENT PLANET 



57 



the fast car was racing through the city 
while people tumbled out of the way. 
Nothing could catch them if they had a 
start. 

Lights of other cars appeared on the 
road behind, but he drove like a maniac 
in the direction of the next city to be 
occupied. The girl might know a safe 
place to spend a few hours. 

There were supplies in the Eagle, and 
if he could locate it they would be able 
to hide as long as necessary. The search- 
light of the car would reflect on the 
metal, as it wasn't far from the high- 
way. He believed it was not many miles 
from this city. 

There was a vaguely familiar feeling 
to the road, and he slowed down. The 
light shone across the level ground for 
several hundred feet, but a long time 
passed before he dared hope they were 
in the section with the spaceship. 

The girl had regained consciousness, 
and sat staring at him in undisguised 
wonder, too startled to return his smile 
of friendship. She was young, with dark 
hair and fair skin. She would have been 
beautiful on Earth, and to the spaceman 
she was more than that. Her environ- 
ment had given her a slightly different 
appearance than girls accustomed to the 
culture of their own race. Her face was 
strong, yet she had acquired some of 
the humor of the rubber-men. 

At last she asked Bob where they were 
going, using the humming language of 
the natives. He replied as best he could, 
describing the Eagle as if she had never 
heard of a spaceship. Her reply sur- 
prised him. 

"I, too, came in a hard-shell boat, 
when I was a little girl. These people 
have brought me up, and told me that I 
was a child of the skies. That I was 
the only one of my kind who was ever 
born, and must live amongst them al- 
ways. Are you, too, a child of the 
stars ?" 

Bob was so taken back that he re- 
mained silent for several minutes. Bright 



lights seemed to race through hi 3 brain, 
as the possibility of her identity seeped 
into his mind. After so long, was it pos- 
sible that he had stumbled onto Burk's 
daughter ? It was out of all reason, but 
still ? 

His mind went back to an event that 
happened twelve years before, when he 
was seventeen. The Martian liner, the 
piracy, and the heroism of the officers 
stood out as if it had taken place the day 
before. 

Doris Burk was being returned to 
Earth on that disastrous voyage. As she 
was the only daughter of the President 
of Interplanetary, every paper carried 
the news. 

For over a month the ship was miss- 
ing, while every observatory searched 
frantically for some trace. Then the 
report of radio signals, picked up by a 
space tramp, reached civilization, to 
cause consternation throughout the uni- 
verse. 

Piracy had broken out on board ! The 
ship had been driven far from the 
standard space lanes, while the officers 
were barricaded in the main cabin with 
the seven-year-old girl. 

The space tramp required three weeks 
to reach a position where they could send 
the news on, with their weak equipment. 
Five weeks passed, after the crew cap- 
tured the ship, before the universe knew 
about it. 

The officers had already cast the child 
adrift in a lifeship to keep her from 
falling into the hands of the mutineers. 
They could not spare a single member 
of their group to accompany her, but set 
the course of the small vessel for Mars, 
under the automatic pilot. 

When the child was gone they fought 
their way to the radio room and sent 
forth the news, expecting the small ship 
would be picked up by searchers. 

ONLY TWO of the men reached the 
room alive, but they contacted the space 
tramp before the crew broke through 



58 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



the door. They, knowing they were 
doomed, had prepared a reception for 
the mutineers. 

A small bottle of liquid was grasped 
tight in the fingers of one man. the bar- 
rel of a gun held against it. When his 
body was hit by the first bullet he pulled 
the trigger. It was the most powerful 
explosive known to the system — and 
there was no longer a Martian liner. 
The officers had ended the mutiny. 

The lifeship had every available space 
crammed with food and water for the 
child, to cover any emergency. Hun- 
dreds of ships cruised space in the 
search, but no sign of the craft was 
found. Doris had either moved the con- 
trols, or the automatic pilot didn't work 
properly. 

Months slipped by and turned into 
years. John Burk died after seven years 
of vain hoping, but he made sure the 
search would never be forgotten. His 
total fortune was left in trust. One 
quarter as a reward for information 
about what had become of his daughter 
— and half the total fortune for her safe 
return to civilization. 

Suddenly Bob Dixon turned to the 
girl. 

"Doris!" 

At the sound of his voice she jumped 
violently. Then looked at him with wide 
eyes. For a long time there was silence, 
while her forehead puckered in deep 
thought. 

"What — do— you — want ?" 

The words came slowly, as something 
almost forgotten. But she still vaguely 
remembered the language of her child- 
hood. Bob spoke slowly, in English, 
so that she might understand the words. 
His tone was low to stop some of the 
vibrating of the car. 

"I came after you, Doris. For many 
years we have searched. They want you 
at home where you will have every hap- 
piness. There are many people like you 
and me, and you will have many friends. 



You will be happy, and have a family of 
your own." 

She hummed her next question, as if 
she couldn't recall the words in English. 

"Did you come to be my mate? I 
haven't one. Until I saw you I thought 
I would never find a mate of my own. 
The other men don't suit me, and I 
wouldn't have one. But they tried to 
keep you away from me. I know, be- 
cause the ruler sent me to another city." 

When a glint appeared in the search- 
light, Bob's mind jerked back to the 
road. It was the Eagle. Nothing else 
on the planet would reflect that way. 

The car swung to the edge of the pave- 
ment, then stopped. The surface of the 
road seemed to control its operation, but 
he increased the power to the utmost. 
Slowly it moved off the edge, and started 
across the softer surface. The electric 
energy was being consumed at an alarm- 
ing rate, but they picked up a little 
speed. 

The girl wandered through the Eagle, 
examining everything in wonder. It was 
beautiful and strange. She tried the 
bunks, and examined the control board. 
It was a new world, within the hull of a 
space tramp. 

When Bob explained the trouble with 
his ship she was disappointed. She had 
expected to leave the small world with- 
out delay. He had come for her, and 
she took it for granted that she was to 
become his mate. He dared not tell her 
otherwise for fear it would upset her 
desire for return to Earth. 

"The small ship I came in has a tank 
full of black stuff, Bob. Do you think 
we could use that?" 

FOR A MOMENT his heart jumped, 
then it sank again. The amount of fuel 
on a lifeship would never drive the Eagle 
to the Solar System. It would hardly 
carry it across the miniature universe, 
without covering the millions of space 
miles. 

When he learned that the ship was in 



RESILIENT PLANET 



59 



the capital city, he gave up all hope. 
They couldn't reach it during the day- 
light season, and the rubber-men inhab- 
ited it at all other times. They would 
have to obtain help from the natives. 

When they reappeared in the city, the 
rubber-men greeted them with grins as 
broad as ever. They were like children, 
caught being naughty. The ruler was 
very much upset at the scolding he re- 
ceived from Doris, and acted as if he 
would like to hide. They worshipped 
the girl, and were naively ashamed of 
the way they had acted. 

Bob showed the rubber-men a sample 
of fuel from the Eagle. They didn't 
recognize it, though he suspected that 
they feigned ignorance. The only chance 
of escape was the fuel in the lifeship. 

Doris informed the rubber-men Bob 
was to be her mate, and displayed him 
proudly. Lack of a companion of her 
own race had preyed on her mind, and 
she was making up for it. 

When they migrated to the central city 
Bob headed for the small ship immedi- 
ately. It had been stored in a museum 
in the center of the metropolis, and he 
found everything undisturbed. The auto- 
matic controls had landed it, but the 
rubber-men found the child almost 
starved to death. The trip through space 
had been long and the supply of food 
was gone long before it reached the resil- 
ient planet. 



It was a three-passenger shfp, with 
very cramped quarters. But the fuel 
tank was two-thirds full ! There was 
not enough to drive the Eagle back to 
Earth, but the small ship had ample for 
the trip. 

Doris was anxious to leave the little 
world, and danced with glee when Bob 
said they could use her ship. But she 
wouldn't go until he promised to bring 
her back again to visit the people she 
had always known. They- were strange 
and different, but they had brought her 
up as their own child. 

The rubber-men were disappointed 
when they found that the human beings 
could leave, but happy when Doris prom- 
ised to return. They didn't believe it 
possible to control the people from the 
stars. They were considered deities 
who could do as they pleased. 

The small ship was carried far out on 
the plain, where the vibration of the 
blasts wouldn't affect the city. Bob was 
afraid the explosions might leave serious 
effects. He waited until every bouncing 
native had returned to the capital, before 
taking off. 

A long hazardous trip lay ahead, but 
Dixon was light-hearted. There was 
hardly room to move, as food and water 
filled every available space. It was a 
long gamble as to whether they would 
ever reach a civilized port — but they 
were headed for home! 



tyo~u cCo-nX kxurt, to- fixCUty 5 * 




60 




by Don A. Stuart 

Who — is that your closest friend — or a monstrous 
imitation, breed of an alien, deadly world? 
WHO GOES THERE ? 





^"T ^HE place stank. A queer, min- 
| gled stench that only the ice- 
JL buried cabins of an Antarctic 
camp know, compounded of reeking hu- 
man sweat, and the heavy, fish-oil stench 
of melted seal blubber. An overtone of 
liniment combatted the musty smell of 
sweat-and-snow-drenched furs. The ac- 
rid odor of burnt cooking fat, and the 



animal, not-unpleasant smell of dogs, di- 
luted by time, hung in the air. 

Lingering odors of machine oil con- 
trasted sharply with the taint of harness 
dressing and leather. Yet, somehow, 
through all that reek of human beings 
and their associates — dogs, machines and 
cooking — came another taint. It was a 
queer, neck ruffling thing, a faintest sug- 



62 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



geslion of an odor alien among the 
smells of industry and life. And it was 
a life-smell. But it came from the thing 
that lay bound with cord and tarpaulin 
on the table, dripping slowly, methodi- 
cally onto the heavy planks, dank and 
gaunt under the unshielded glare of the 
electric light. 

Blair, the little bald-pated biologist of 
the expedition, twitched nervously at the 
wrappings, exposing clear, dark ice be- 
neath and then pulling the tarpaulin back 
into place restlessly. His little birdlike 
motions of suppressed eagerness danced 
his shadow across the fringe of dingy 
gray underwear hanging from the low 
ceiling, the equatorial fringe of stiff, 
graying hair around his naked skull a 
comical halo about the shadow's head. 

Commander Garry brushed aside the 
lax legs of a suit of underwear, and 
stepped toward the table. Slowly his 
eyes traced around the rings of men sar- 
dined into the Administration Building. 
His tall, stiff bod) straightened finally, 
and he nodded. "Thirty-seven. All 
here." His voice was low, yet carried 
the clear authority of the commander 
by nature, as well as by title. 

"You know the outline of the story 
back of that find of the Secondary Pole 
Expedition. I have been conferring with 
Second-in-Command McReady, and 
Norris, as well as Blair and Dr. Copper. 
There is a difference of opinion, and be- 
cause it involves the entire group, it is 
only just that the entire Expedition per- 
sonnel act on it. 

"I am going to ask McReady to give 
you the details of the story, because each 
of you has been too busy with his own 
work to follow closely the endeavors of 
the others. McReady ?" 

Moving from the smoke-blued back- 
ground, McReady was a figure from 
some forgotten myth, a looming, bronze 
statue that held life, and walked. Six- 
feet-four inches he stood as he halted 
beside the table, and with a character- 
istic glance upward to assure himself of 



room under the low ceiling beams, 
straightened. His rough, dashingly 
orange windproof jacket he still had on, 
yet on his huge frame it did not seem 
misplaced. Even here, four feet beneath 
the drift-wind that droned across the 
antarctic waste above the ceiling, the cold 
of the frozen continent leaked in, and 
gave meaning to the harshness of the 
man. And he was bronze — his great 
red-bronze beard, the heavy hair that 
matched it. The gnarled, corded hands 
gripping, relaxing, gripping and relaxing 
on the table planks were bronze. Even 
the deep-sunken eyes beneath heavy 
brows were bronzed. 

Age-resisting endurance of the metal 
spoke in the cragged heavy outlines of 
his face, and the mellow tones of the 
heavy voice. "Norris and Blair agree 
on one thing ; that animal we found was 
not — terrestrial in origin. Norris fears 
there may be danger in that ; Blair says 
there is none. 

"BUT I'll go back to how, and why 
we found it. To all that was known 
before we came here, it appeared that 
this point was exactly over the South 
Magnetic Pole of Earth. The compass 
does point straight down here, as you 
all know. The more delicate instruments 
of the physicists, instruments especially 
designed for this expedition and its 
study of the magnetic pole, detected a 
secondary effect, a secondary, less pow- 
erful magnetic influence about 80 miles 
south-west of here. 

"The Secondary Magnetic Expedition 
went out to investigate it. There is no 
need for details. We found it, but it 
was not the huge meteorite or magnetic 
mountain Norris had expected to find. 
Iron ore is magnetic, of course ; iron more 
so — and certain special steels even more 
magnetic. From the surface indications, 
the secondary pole we found was small, 
so small that the magnetic effect it had 
was preposterous. No magnetic mate- 
rial conceivable could have that effect. 



"WHO GOES THERE?" 



63 



Soundings through the ice indicated it 
was within one hundred feet of the gla- 
cier surface. 

"I think you should know the struc- 
ture of the place. There is a broad 
plateau, a level sweep that runs more 
than 150 miles due south from the Sec- 
ondary station, Van Wall says. He 
didn't have time or fuel to fly farther, 
hut it was running smoothly due south 
then. Right there, where that buried 
thing was, there is an ice-drowned 
mountain ridge, a granite wall of un- 
shakable strength that has dammed back 
the ice creeping from the south. 

"And four hundred miles due south 
is the South Polar Plateau. You have 
asked me at various times why it gets 
warmer here when the wind rises, and 
most of you know. As a meteorologist 
I'd have staked my word that no wind 
could blow at — 70 degrees — that no 
more than a 5-mile wind could blow 
at — 50 — without causing warming due 
to friction with ground, snow and ice 
and the air itself. 

"We camped there on the lip of that 
ice-drowned mountain range for twelve 
days. We dug our camp into the blue 
ice that formed the surface, and escaped 
most of it. But for twelve consecutive 
days the wind blew at 45 miles an hour. 
It went as high as 48, and fell to 41 at 
times. The temperature was — 63 de- 
grees. It rose to — 60 and fell to — 68. 
It was meteorologically impossible, and 
it went on uninterruptedly for twelve 
days and twelve nights. 

"Somewhere to the south, the frozen 
air of the South Polar Plateau slides 
down from that 18,000 foot bowl, down 
a mountain pass, over a glacier, and 
starts north. There must be a funnel- 
ing mountain chain that directs it, and 
sweeps it away for four hundred miles 
to hit that bald plateau where we found 
the secondary pole, and 350 miles far- 
ther north reaches the Antarctic Ocean. 

"It's been frozen there since Antarc- 
tica froze twenty million years ago. 



There never has been a thaw there. 

"Twenty million years ago Antarctica 
was beginning to freeze. We've inves- 
tigated, though and built speculations. 
What we believe happened was about 
like this. 

"Something came down out of space, 
a ship. We saw it there in the blue ice, 
a thing like a submarine without a con- 
ning tower or directive vanes, 280 feet 
long and 45 feet in diameter at its 
thickest. 

"Eh, Van Wall? Space? Yes, but 
I'll explain that better later." Mc- 
Ready's steady voice went on. 

"It came down from space, driven and 
lifted by forces men haven't discovered 
yet, and somehow — perhaps something 
went wrong then — it tangled with 
Earth's magnetic field. It came south 
here, out of control probably, circling 
the magnetic pole. That's a savage 
country there, but when Antarctica was 
still freezing it must have been a thou- 
sand times more savage. There must 
have been blizzard snow, as well as drift, 
new snow falling as the continent gla- 
ciated. The swirl there must have been 
particularly bad, the wind hurling a solid 
blanket of white over the lip of that 
now-buried mountain. 

"THE SHIP struck solid granite 
head-on, and cracked up. Not every one 
of the passengers in it was killed, but 
the ship must have been ruined, her 
driving mechanism locked. It tangled 
with Earth's field, Norris believes. No 
thing made by intelligent beings can tan- 
gle with the dead immensity of a planet's 
natural forces and survive. 

"One of its passengers stepped out. 
The wind we saw there never fell be- 
low 41, and the temperature never 
rose about — 60. Then — the wind must 
have been stronger. And there was 
drift falling in a solid sheet. The thing 
was lost completely in ten paces." He 
paused for a moment, the deep, steady 
voice giving way to the drone of wind 



S4 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



overhead, and the uneasy, malicious gur- 
gling in the pipe of the galley-stove. 

Drift — a drift-wind was sweeping by 
overhead. Right now the snow picked 
up by the mumbling wind fled in level, 
blinding lines across the face of the 
buried camp. If a man stepped out of 
the tunnels that connected each of the 
camp buildings beneath the surface, he'd 
be lost in ten paces. Out there, the 
slim, black finger of the radio mast lifted 
300 feet into the air, and at its peak 
was the clear night sky. A sky of thin, 
whining wind rushing steadily from be- 
yond to another beyond under the lick- 
ing, curling mantle of the aurora. And 
off north, the horizon flamed with queer, 
angry colors of the midnight twilight. 
That was spring 300 feet above Ant- 
arctica. 

At the surface — it was white death. 
Death of a needle-fingered cold driven 
before the wind, sucking heat from any 
warm thing. Cold — and white mist of 
endless, everlasting drift, the fine, fine 
particles of licking snow that obscured 
all things. 

Kinner, the little, scar-faced cook, 
winced. Five days ago he had stepped 
out to the surface to reach a cache of 
frozen beef. He had reached it, started 
back — and the drift-wind leapt out of 
the south. Cold, white death that 
streamed across the ground blinded him 
in twenty seconds. He stumbled on 
wildly in circles. It was half an hour 
before rope-guided men from below 
found him in the impenetrable rnurk. 

It was easy for man — or thing — to 
get lost in ten paces. 

"And the drift-wind then was prob- 
ably more impenetrable than we know." 
McReady's voice snapped Kinner's mind 
back. Back to welcome, dank warmth 
of the Ad Building. "The passenger of 
the ship wasn't prepared either, it ap- 
pears. It froze within ten feet of the 
ship. 

"We dug down to find the ship, and 
our tunnel happened to find the frozen 



— animal. Barclay's ice-ax struck its 
skull. 

"When we saw what it was, Barclay 
went back to the tractor, started the fire 
up and when the steam pressure built, 
sent a call for Blair and Dr. Copper. 
Barclay himself was sick then. Stayed 
sick for three days, as a matter of fact. 

"When Blair and Copper came, we 
cut out the animal in a block of ice, as 
you see, wrapped it and -loaded it on 
the tractor for return here. We wanted 
to get into that ship. 

"We reached the side and found the 
metal was something we didn't know. 
Our beryllium-bronze, non-magnetic 
tools wouldn't touch it. Barclay had 
some tool-steel on the tractor, and that 
wouldn't scratch it either. We made 
reasonable tests — even tried some acid 
from the batteries with no results. 

"They must have had a passivating 
process to make magnesium metal resist 
acid that way, and the alloy must have 
been at least 95% magnesium. But we 
had no way of guessing that, so when 
we spotted the barely opened lock door, 
we cut around it. There was clear, 
hard ice inside the lock, where we 
couldn't reach it. Through the little 
crack we could look in and see that only 
metal and tools were in there, so we de- 
cided to loosen the ice with a bomb. 

"WE HAD decanite bombs and ther- 
mite. Thermite is the ice-softener ; deca- 
nite might have shattered valuable 
things, where the thermite's heat would 
just loosen the ice. Dr. Copper, Nor- 
ris and I placed a 25-pound thermite 
bomb, wired it, and took the connector 
up the tunnel to the surface, where Blair 
had the steam tractor waiting. A hun- 
dred yards the other side of that granite 
wall we set off the thermite bomb. 

"The magnesium metal of the ship 
caught, of course. The glow of the bomb 
flared and died, then it began to flare 
again. We ran back to the tractor, and 
gradually the glare built up. From 



WHO GOES THERE?" 



65 



where we were we could see the whole 
ice-field illuminated from beneath with 
an unbearable light; the ship's shadow 
was a great, dark cone reaching off to- 
ward the north, where the twilight was 
just about gone. For a moment it lasted, 
and we counted three other shadow- 
things that might have been other — pas- 
sengers — frozen there. Then the ice was 
crashing down and against the ship. 

"That's why I told you about that 
place. The wind sweeping down from 
the Pole was at our backs. Steam and 
hydrogen flame were torn away in white 
ice-fog; the flaming heat under the ice 
there was yanked away toward the Ant- 
arctic Ocean before it touched us. Oth- 
erwise we wouldn't have come back, 
even with the shelter of that granite 
ridge that stopped the light. 

"Somehow in the blinding inferno we 
could see great hunched things, black 
bulks lowing, even so. They shed even 
the furious incandescence of the mag- 
nesium for a time. Those must have 
been the engines, we knew. Secrets go- 
ing in blazing glory — secrets that might 
have given Man the planets. Mysteri- 
ous things that could lift and hurl that 
ship — and had soaked in the force of 
the Earth's magnetic field. I saw Nor- 
ris' mouth move, and ducked. I couldn't 
hear him. 

"Insulation — something — gave way. 
All Earth's field they'd soaked up twenty 
million years before broke loose. The 
aurora in the sky above licked down, 
and the whole plateau there was bathed 
in cold fire that blanketed vision. The 
ice-ax in my hand got red hot, and 
hissed on the ice. Metal buttons on my 
clothes burned into me. And a flash of 
electric blue seared upward from be- 
yond the granite wall. 

"Then the walls of ice crashed down 
on it. For an instant it squealed the 
way dry-ice does when it's pressed be- 
tween metal. 

"We were blind and groping in the 



dark for hours while our eyes recov- 
ered. We found every coil within a mile 
was fused rubbish, the dynamo and 
every radio set, the earphones and speak- 
ers. If we hadn't had the steam tractor, 
we wouldn't have gotten over to the 
Secondary Camp. 

"Van Wall flew in from Big Magnet 
at sun-up, as you know. We came home 
as soon as possible. That is the his- 
tory of — that." McReady's great bronze 
beard gestured toward the thing on the 
table. 

H. 

BLAIR stirred uneasily, his little, 
bony fingers wriggling under the harsh 
light. Little brown freckles, on his 
knuckles slid back and forth as the ten- 
dons under the skin twitched. He pulled 
aside a bit of the tarpaulin and looked 
impatiently at the dark ice-bound thing 
inside. 

McReady's big body straightened 
somewhat. He'd ridden the rocking, 
jarring steam tractor forty miles that 
day, pushing on to Big Magnet here. 
Even his calm will had been pressed by 
the anxiety to mix again with humans. 
It was lone and quiet out there in Sec- 
ondary Camp, where a wolf-wind howled 
down from the Pole. Wolf-wind howl- 
ing in his sleep — winds droning and the 
evil, unspeakable face of that monster 
leering up as he'd first seen it through 
clear, blue ice, with a bronze ice-ax 
buried in its skull. 

The giant meteorologist spoke again. 
"The problem is this. Blair wants to 
examine the thing. Thaw it out and 
make micro slides of its tissues and 
so forth. Norris doesn't believe that 
is safe, and Blair does. Dr. Copper 
agrees pretty much with Blair. Norris 
is a physicist, of course, not a biologist. 
But he makes a point I think we should 
all hear. Blair has described the micro- 
scopic life-forms biologists find living, 
even in this cold and inhospitable place. 
They freeze every winter, and thaw 



66 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



every summer — for three months — and 
live. 

"The point Norris makes is — they 
thaw, and live again. There must have 
been microscopic life associated with this 
creature. There is with every living 
thing we know. And Norris is afraid 
that we may release a plague — some 
germ disease unknown to Earth — if we 
thaw those microscopic things that have 
been frozen there for twenty million 
years. 

"Blair admits that such micro life 
might retain the power of living. Such 
unorganized things as individual cells 
can retain life for unknown periods, 
when solidly frozen. The beast itself 
is as dead as those frozen mammoths 
they find in Siberia. Organized, highly 
developed life-forms can't stand that 
treatment. 

"But micro-life could. Norris sug- 
gests that we may release some disease- 
form that man, never having met it be- 
fore, will be utterly defenseless against. 

"Blair's answer is that there may be 
such still-living germs, but that Nor- 
ris has the case reversed. They are 
utterly non-immune to man. Our life- 
chemistry probably " 

"Probably!" The little biologist's 
head lifted in a quick, birdlike motion. 
The halo of gray hair about his bald 
head ruffled as though angry. "Heh. 
One look " 

"I know," McReady acknowledged. 
"The thing is not Earthly. It does not 
seem likely that it can have a life-chem- 
istry sufficiently like ours to make cross- 
infection remotely possible. I would say 
that there is no danger." 

McReady looked toward Dr. Copper. 
The physician shook his head slowly. 
"None whatever," he asserted confi- 
dently. "Man cannot infect or be in- 
fected by germs that live in such com- 
paratively close relatives as the snakes. 
And they are, I assure you," his clean- 
shaven face grimaced uneasily, "much 
nearer to us than — that." 



VANCE NORRIS. moved angrily. 
He was comparatively short in this gath- 
ering of big men, some five-feet-eight, 
and his stocky, powerful build tended to 
make him seem shorter. His black hair 
was crisp and hard, like short, steel 
wires, and his eyes were the gray of 
fractured steel. If McReady was a man 
of bronze, Norris was all steel. His 
movements, his thoughts, his whole 
bearing had the quick, hard impulse of 
a steel spring. His nerves were steel — 
hard, quick-acting — swift corroding. 

He was decided on his point now, and 
he lashed out in its defense with a char- 
acteristic quick, clipped flow of words. 
"Different chemistry be damned. That 
thing may be dead — or, by God, it may 
not — but I don't like it. Damn it, Blair, 
let them see the monstrosity you are pet- 
ting over there. Let them see the foul 
thing and decide for themselves whether 
they want that thing thawed out in this 
camp. 

"Thawed out, by the way. That's got 
to be thawed out in one of the shacks 
to-night, if it is thawed out. Somebody 
— who's watchman to-night? Magnetic 
— oh, Connant. Cosmic rays to-night. 
Well, you get to sit up with that twenty- 
million-year-old mummy of his. 

"Unwrap it, Blair. How the hell can 
they tell what they are buying, if they 
can't see it? It may have a different 
chemistry. I don't care what else it has, 
but I know it has something I don't 
want. If you can judge by the look on 
its face — it isn't human so maybe you 
can't — it was annoyed when it froze. 
Annoyed, in fact, is just about as close 
an approximation of the way it felt as 
crazy, mad, insane hatred. Neither one 
touches the subject. 

"How the hell can these birds tell 
what they are voting on? They haven't 
seen those three red eyes, and that blue 
hair like crawling worms. Crawling — 
damn, it's crawling there in the ice right 
now ! 

"Nothing Earth ever spawned had the 



WHO GOES THERE? 



67 



unutterable sublimation of devastating 
wrath that thing let loose in its face 
when it looked around his frozen deso- 
lation twenty million years ago. Mad? 
It was mad clear through — searing, blis- 
tering mad ! 

"Hell, I've had bad dreams ever since 
I looked at those three red eyes. Night- 
mares. Dreaming the thing thawed out 
and came to life — that it wasn't dead, 
or even wholly unconscious all those 
twenty million years, but just slowed, 
waiting — waiting. You'll dream, too, 
while that damned thing that Earth 
wouldn't own is dripping, dripping in 
'the Cosmos House tonight. 

"And, Connant," Norris whipped to- 
ward the cosmic ray specialist, "won't 
you have fun sitting up all night in the 
quiet. Wind whining above — and that 

thing dripping " He stopped for a 

moment, and looked around. 

"I know. That's not science. But 
this is, it's psychology. You'll have 
nightmares for a year to come. Every 
night since I looked at that thing I've 
had 'em. That's why I hate it — sure 
I do — and don't want it around. Put 
it back where it came from and let it 
freeze for another twenty million years. 
I had some swell nightmares — that it 
wasn't made like we are — which is ob- 
vious — but of a different kind of flesh 
that it can really control. That it can 
change its shape, and look like a man — 
and wait to kill and eat 

"That's not a logical argument. I 
know it isn't. The thing isn't Earth- 
logic anyway. 

- "Maybe it has an alien body-chemis- 
try, and maybe its bugs do have a dif- 
ferent body-chemistry. A germ might 
not stand that, but, Blair and Copper, 
how about a virus? That's just an 
enzyme molecule, you've said. That 
wouldn't need anything but a protein 
molecule of any body to work on. 

"And how are you so sure that, of 
the million varieties of microscopic life 
it may have, none of them are danger- 
AST— 5 



ous. How about diseases like hydropho- 
bia — rabies — that attacks any warm- 
blooded creature, whatever its body- 
chemistry may be? And parrot fever? 
Have you a body like a parrot, Blair? 
And plain rot — gangrene — necrosis if 
you want ? Thai isn't choosy about body 
chemistry!" 

BLAIR LOOKED up from his put- 
tering long enough to meet Norris' an- 
gry, gray eyes for an instant. "So far 
the only tiling you have said this thing 
gave off that was catching was dreams. 
I'll go so far as to admit that." An 
impish, slightly malignant grin crossed 
the little man's seamed face. "I had 
some, too. So. It's dream-infectious. 
No doubt an exceedingly dangerous 
malady. 

"So far as your other things go, you 
have a badly mistaken idea about viruses. 
In the first place, nobody has shown 
that the enzyme-molecule theory, and 
that alone, explains them. And in the 
second place, when you catch tobacco 
mosaic or wheat rust, let me know. A 
wheat plant is a lot nearer your body- 
chemistry than this other-world crea- 
ture is. 

"And your rabies is limited, strictly 
limited. You can't get it from, nor give 
it to, a wheat plant or a fish — which is 
a collateral descendant of a common an- 
cestor of yours. Which this, Norris, is 
not." Blair nodded pleasantly toward 
the tarpaulined bulk on the table. 

"Well, thaw the damned thing in a 
tub of formalin if you must thaw it. 
I've suggested that " 

"And I've said there would be no 
sense in it. You can't compromise. 
Why did you and Commander Garry 
come down here to study magnetism? 
Why weren't you content to stay at 
home? There's magnetic force enough 
in New York. I could no more study 
the life this thing once had from a for- 
malin-pickled sample than you could get 
the information you wanted back in New 



68 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



York. And — if this one is so treated, 
never in all time to come can there be a 
duplicate! The race it came from must 
have passed away in the twenty million 
years it lay frozen, so that even if it 
came from Mars then, we'd never find its 
Jike. And — the ship is gone. 

"There's only one way to do this — 
and that is the best possible way. It 
must be thawed slowly, carefully, and 
not in formalin." 

Commander Garry stood forward 
again, and Norris stepped back mutter- 
ing angrily. "I think Blair is right, gen- 
tlemen. What do you say ?" 

Connant grunted. "It sounds right 
to us, I think — only perhaps he ought 
to stand watch over it while it's thaw- 
ing." He grinned ruefully, brushing a 
stray lock of ripe-cherry hair back from 
his forehead. "Swell idea, in fact — if 
he sits up with his jolly little corpse." 

Garry smiled slightly. A general 
chuckle of agreement rippled over the 
group. "I should think any ghost it 
may have had would have starved to 
death if it hung around here that long, 
Connant," Garry suggested. "And you 
look capable of taking care of it. 'Iron- 
man' Connant ought to be able to take 
out any opposing players, still." 

Connant shook himself uneasily. "I'm 
not worrying about ghosts. Let's see 
that thing. I " 

Eagerly Blair was stripping back the 
ropes. A single throw of the tarpaulin 
revealed the thing. The ice had melted 
somewhat in the heat of the room, and 
it was clear and blue as thick, good 
glass. It shone wet and sleek under the 
harsh light of the unshielded globe above. 

The room stiffened abruptly. It was 
face up there on the plain, greasy planks 
of the table. The broken haft of the 
bronze ice-ax was still buried in the 
queer skull. Three mad, hate-filled eyes 
blazed up with a living fire, bright as 
fresh-spilled blood, from a face ringed 
with a writhing, loathsome nest of 



worms, blue, mobile worms that crawled 
where hair should grow 

Van Wall, six feet and 200 pounds 
of ice-nerved pilot, gave a queer, stran- 
gled gasp and butted, stumbled his way 
out to the corridor. Half the company 
broke for the doors. The others stum- 
bled away from the table. 

McReady stood at one end of the ta- 
ble watching them, his great body 
planted solid on his powerful legs. Nor- 
ris from the opposite end glowered at 
the thing with smouldering hate. Out- 
side the door, Garry was talking with 
half a dozen of the men at once. 

Blair had a tack hammer. The ice 
that cased the thing schluffed crisply 
under its steel claw as it peeled from 
the thing it had cased for twenty thou- 
sand thousand years 

III. 

"I KNOW you don't like the thing, 
Connant, but it just has to be thawed 
out right. You say leave it as it is till 
we get back to civilization. All right, 
I'll admit your argument that we could 
do a better and more complete job there 




"WHO GOES THERE?" 



69 



is sound. But — how are we going to 
get this across the Line? We have to 
take this through one temperate zone, 
the equatorial zone, and half way 
through the other temperate zone be- 
fore we get it to New York. You don't 
want to sit with it one night, but you 
suggest, then, that I hang its corpse in 
the freezer with the beef?" Blair looked 
up from his cautious chipping, his bald, 
freckled skull nodding triumphantly. 

Kinner, the stocky, scar-faced cook, 
saved Connant the trouble of answering. 
"Hey, you listen, mister. You put that 
thing in the box with the meat, and by 
all the gods there ever were, I'll put 
you in to keep it company. You birds 
have brought everything movable in this 
camp in onto my mess tables here al- 
ready, and I had to stand for that. But 
you go putting things like that in my 
meat box, or even my meat cache here, 
and you cook your own damn grub." 

"But, Kinner, this is the only table in 
Big Magnet that's big enough to work 
on," Blair objected. "Everybody's ex- 
plained that." 

"Yeah, and everybody's brought ev- 
erything in here. Clark brings his dogs 
every time there's a fight and sews them 
up on that table. Ralsen brings in his 
sledges. Hell, the only thing you haven't 
had on that table is the Boeing. And 
you'd 'a' had that in if you coulda fig- 
ured a way to get it through the tunnels." 

Commander Garry chuckled and 
grinned at Van Wall, the huge Chief 
Pilot. Van Wall's great blond beard 
twitched suspiciously as he nodded 
gravely to Kinner. "You're right, Kin- 
ner. The aviation department is the 
only one that treats you right." 

"It does get crowded, Kinner," Garry 
acknowledged. "But I'm afraid we all 
find it that way at times. Not much 
privacy in an antarctic camp." 

"Privacy? What the hell's that ? You 
know, the thing that really made me 
weep, was when I saw Barclay marchin' 
through here chantin' 'The last lumber 



in the camp! The last lumber in the 
camp!" and carryin' it out to build that 
house on his tractor. Damn it, I missed 
that moon cut in the door he carried out 
more'n I missed the sun when it set. 
That wasn't just the last lumber Bar- 
clay was walkin' off with. He was car- 
ryin' off the last bit of privacy in this 
blasted place." 

A grin rode even on Connant 's heavy 
face as Kinner's perennial, good-natured 
grouch came up again. But it died 
away quickly as his dark, deep-set eyes 
turned again to the red-eyed thing Blair 
was chipping from its cocoon of ice. A 
big hand ruffed his shoulder-length hair, 
and tugged at a twisted lock that fell 
behind his ear in a familiar gesture. "I 
know that cosmic ray shack's going to 
be too crowded if I have to sit up with 
that thing," he growled. "Why can't 
you go on chipping the ice away from 
around it — you can do that without any- 
body butting in, I assure you — and then 
hang the thing up over the power-plant 
boiler? That's warm enough. It'll 
thaw out a chicken, even a whole side 
of beef, in a few hours." 

"I know," Blair protested, dropping 
the tack hammer to gesture more effec- 
tively with his bony, freckled fingers, his 
small body tense with eagerness, "but 
this is too important to take any chances. 
There never was a find like this ; there 
never can be again. It's the only chance 
men will ever have, and it has to be done 
exactly right. 

"LOOK, you know how the fish we 
caught down near the Ross Sea would 
freeze almost as soon as we got them 
on deck, and come to life again if we 
thawed them gently? Low forms of 
life aren't killed by quick freezing and 
slow thawing. We have " 

"Hey, for the love of Heaven — you 
mean that damned thing will come to 
life!" Connant yelled. "You get the 

damned thing Let me at it ! That's 

going to be in so many pieces " 



70 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



"NO! No, you fool " Blair 

jumped in front of Connant to protect 
his precious find. "No. Just low forms 
of life. For Pete's sake let me finish. 
You can't thaw higher forms of life and 
have them come to. Wait a moment 
now — it ! A fish can come to after 
freezing because it's so low a form of 
life that the individual cells of its body 
can revive, and that alone is enough to 
reestablish life. Any higher forms 
thawed out that way are dead. Though 
the individual cells revive, they die be- 
cause there must be organization and 
cooperative effort to live. That coop- 
eration cannot be reestablished. There 
is a sort of potential life in any unin- 
jured, quick-frozen animal. But it can't 
— can't under any circumstances — be- 
come active life in higher animals. The 
higher animals are too complex, too 
delicate. This is an intelligent creature 
as high in its evolution as we are in 
ours. Perhaps higher. It is as dead as 
a frozen man would be." 

"How do you know?" demanded Con- 
nant, hefting the ice-ax he had seized a 
moment before. 

Commander Garry laid a restraining 
hand on his heavy shoulder. "Wait a 
minute, Connant. I want to get this 
straight. I agree that there is going to 
be no thawing of this thing if there is 
the remotest chance of its revival. I 
quite agree it is much too unpleasant to 
have alive, but I had no idea there was 
the remotest possibility." 

Dr. Copper pulled his pipe from be- 
tween his teeth and heaved his stocky, 
dark body from the bunk he had been 
sitting in. "Blair's being technical. 
That's dead. As dead as the mammoths 
they find frozen in Siberia. Potential 
life is like atomic energy — there, but 
nobody can get it out, and it certainly 
won't release itself except in rare cases, 
as rare as radium in the chemical anal- 
ogy. We have all sorts of proof that 
things don't live after being frozen — 
not even fish, generally speaking — and 



no proof that higher animal life can un- 
der any circumstances. What's the 
point, Blair?" 

The little biologist shook himself. The 
little ruff of hair standing out around his 
bald pate waved in righteous anger. 
"The point is," he said in an injured 
tone, "that the individual cells might 
show the characteristics they had in life, 
if it is properly thawed. A man's mus- 
cle cells live many hours after he has 
died. Just because they live, and a few 
things like hair and fingernail cells still 
live, you wouldn't accuse a corpse of 
being a Zombie, or something. 

"Now if I thaw this right, I may have 
a chance to determine what sort of 
world it's native to. We don't, and 
can't know by any other means, whether 
it came from Earth or Mars or Venus 
or from beyond the stars. 

"And just because it looks unlike men, 
you don't have to accuse it of being evil, 
or vicious or something. Maybe that 
expression on its face is its equivalent 
to a resignation to fate,. White is the 
color of mourning to the Chinese. If 
men can have different customs, why 
can't a so-different race have different 
understandings of facial expressions?" 

CONNANT laughed softly, mirth- 
lessly. "Peaceful resignation! If that 
is the best it could do in the way of 
resignation, I should exceedingly dislike 
seeing it when it was looking mad. That 
face was never designed to express peace. 
It just didn't have any philosophical 
thoughts like peace in its make-up. 

"I know it's your pet— but be sane 
about it. That thing grew up on evil, 
adolesced slowly roasting alive the local 
equivalent of kittens, and amused itself 
through maturity on new and ingenious 
torture." 

"You haven't the slightest right to say 
that," snapped Blair. "How do you 
know the first thing about the meaning 
of a facial expression inherently inhu- 
man? It may well have no human 



'WHO GOES THERE?" 



71 



equivalent whatever. That is just a dif- 
ferent development of Nature, another 
example of Nature's wonderful adapta- 
bility. Growing on another, perhaps 
harsher world, it has different form and 
features. But it is just as much a legiti- 
mate child of Nature as you are. You 
are displaying that childish human weak- 
ness of hating the different. On its own 
world it would probably class you as a 
fish-belly, white monstrosity with an in- 
sufficient number of eyes and a fungoid 
body pale and bloated with gas. 

"Just because its nature is different, 
you haven't any right to say it's neces- 
sarily evil." 

Norris burst out a single, explosive, 
"Haw!" He looked down at the thing. 
"May be that things from other worlds 
don't have to be evil just because they're 
different. But that thing was! Child 
of Nature, eh? Well, it was a hell of 
an evil Nature." 

"Aw, will you mugs cut crabbing at 
each other and get the damned thing off 
my table?" Kinner growled. "And put 
a canvas over it. It looks indecent." 

"Kinner's gone modest," jeered Con- 
nan t. 

Kinner slanted his eyes up to the big 
physicist. The scarred cheek twisted to 
join the line of his tight lips in a twisted 
grin. "AH right, big boy, and what 
were you grousing about a minute ago? 
We can set the thing in a chair next to 
you tonight, if you want." 

"I'm not afraid of its face," Connant 
snapped. "I don't like keeping a wake 
over its corpse particularly, but I'm 
going to do it." 

Kinner's grin spread. "Uh-hu." He 
went off to the galley stove and shook 
down ashes vigorously, drowning the 
brittle chipping of the ice as Blair fell 
to work again. 

IV. 

"CLUCK," reported the cosmic ray 
counter, "cluck-burrrp-cUick." Connant 
started and dropped his pencil. 



"Damnation." The physicist looked 
toward the far corner, back at the Gieger 
counter on the table near that corner, 
and crawled under the desk at which he 
had been working to retrieve the pencil. 
He sat down at his work again, trying 
to make his writing more even. It 
tended to have jerks and quavers in it, 
in time with the abrupt proud-hen noises 
of the Gieger counter. The muted 
whoosh of the pressure lamp he was 
using for illumination, the mingled gar- 
gles and bugle calls of a dozen men 
sleeping down the corridor in Paradise 
House formed the background sounds 
for the irregular, clucking noises of the 
counter, the occasional rustle of falling 
coal in the copper-bellied stove. And a 
soft, steady drip-drip-drip from the thing 
in the corner. 

Connant jerked a pack of cigarettes 
from his pocket, snapped it so that a 
cigarette protruded and jabbed the cyl- 
inder into his mouth. The lighter failed 
to function, and he pawed angrily 
through the pile of papers in search of 
a match. He scratched the wheel of 
the lighter several times, dropped it with 
a curse and got up to pluck a hot coal 
from the stove with the coal-tongs. 

The lighter functioned instantly when 
he tried it on returning to the desk. 
The counter ripped out a series of 
chuckling guffaws as a burst of cosmic 
rays struck through to it. Connant 
turned to glower at it, and tried to con- 
centrate on the interpretation of data 
collected during the past week. The 
weekly summary 

He gave up and yielded to curiosity, 
or nervousness. He lifted the pressure 
lamp from the desk and carried it over 
to the table in the corner. Then he re- 
turned to the stove and picked up the 
coal tongs. The beast had been thaw- 
ing for nearly 18 hours now. He poked 
at it with an unconscious caution ; the 
flesh was no longer hard as armor 
plate, but had assumed a rubbery tex- 
ture. It looked like wet, blue rubber 



72 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



glistening under droplets of water like 
little round jewels in the glare of the 
gasoline pressure lantern. Connant felt 
an unreasoning desire to pour the con- 
tents of the lamp's reservoir over the 
thing in its box and drop the cigarette 
into it. The three red eyes glared up 
at him sightlessly, the ruby eyeballs re- 
flecting murky, smoky rays of light. 

He realized vaguely that he had been 
looking at them for a very long time, 
even vaguely understood that they were 
no longer sightless. But it did not seem 
of importance, of no more importance 
than labored, slow motion of the 
tentacula? tilings that sprouted from the 
base of the scrawny, slowly pulsing neck. 

Connant picked up the pressure lamp 
and returned to his chair. He sat down, 
staring at the pages of mathematics be- 
fore him. The clucking of the counter 
was strangely less disturbing, the rustle 
of the coals in the stove no longer dis- 
tracting. 

The creak of the floorboards behind 
him didn't interrupt his thoughts as he 
went about his weekly report in an auto- 
matic manner, filling in columns of data 
and making brief, summarizing notes. 

The creak of the floorboards sounded 
nearer. 

V. 

BLAIR came up from the nightmare- 
haunted depths of sleep abruptly. Con- 
nant's face floated vaguely above him; 
for a moment it seemed a continuance 
of the wild horror of the dream. But 
Connant's face was angry, and a little 
frightened. "Blair — Blair you damned 
log, wake up." 

"Uh — eh?" the little biologist rubbed 
his eyes, his bony, freckled fingers 
crooked to a mutilated child-fist. From 
surrounding bunks other faces lifted to 
stare down at them. 

Connant straightened up. "Get up — 
and get a lift on. Your damned ani- 
mal's escaped." 

"Escaped— what !" Chief Pilot Van 



Wall's bull voice roared out with a vol- 
ume that shook the walls. Down the 
communication tunnels other voices 
yelled suddenly. The dozen inhabitants 
of Paradise House tumbled in abruptly, 
Barclay, stocky and bulbous in long 
woolen underwear, carrying a fire ex- 
tinguisher. 

"What the hell's the matter ?" Barclay 
demanded. 

"Your damned beast got loose. I fell 
asleep about twenty minutes ago, and 
when I woke up, the thing was gone. 
Hey, Doc, the hell you say those things 
can't come to life. Blair's blasted po- 
tential life developed a hell of a lot of 
potential and walked out on us." 

Copper stared blankly. "It wasn't — 
Earthly," he sighed suddenly. "I — I 
guess Earthly laws don't apply." 

"Well, it applied for leave of absence 
and took it. We've got to find it and 
capture it somehow." Connant swore 
bitterly, his deep-set black eyes sullen 
and angry. "It's a wonder the hellish 
creature didn't eat me in my sleep." 

Blair started back, his pale eyes sud- 
denly fear-struck. "Maybe it di — er — 
uh — we'll have to find it." 

"You find it. It's your pet. I've had 
all I want to do with it, sitting there 
for seven hours with the counter cluck- 
ing every lew seconds, and you birds 
in here singing night-music. It's a won- 
der I got to sleep. I'm going through 
to the Ad Building." 

Commander Garry ducked through the 
doorway, pulling his belt tight. "You 
won't have to. Van's roar sounded like 
the Boeing taking off down wind. So 
it wasn't dead ?" 

"I didn't carry it off in my arms, I 
assure you," Connant snapped. "The 
last I saw, that split skull was oozing 
green goo, like a squashed caterpillar. 
Doc just said our laws don't work — it's 
unearthly. Well, it's an unearthly mon- 
ster, with an unearthly disposition, judg- 
ing by the face, wandering around with 
a split skull and brains oozing out." 



WHO GOES THERE?" 



73 



Norris and McReady appeared in the 
doorway, a doorway filling with other 
shivering men. "Has anybody seen it 
coining over here?" Norris asked in- 
nocently. "About four feet tall— three 

red eyes — brains oozing out Hey, 

has anybody checked to make sure this 
isn't a cracked idea of humor? If it is, 
I think we'll unite in tying Blair's pet 
around Connant's neck like the Ancient 
Mariner's albatross." 

"It's no humor," Connant shivered. 
"Lord, I wish it were. I'd rather 

wear " He stopped. A wild, weird 

howl shrieked through the corridors. 
The men stiffened abruptly, and half 
turned. 

"I THINK it's been located," Con- 
nant finished. His dark eyes shifted 
with a queer unease. He darted back 
to his bunk in Paradise House, to re- 
turn almost immediately with a heavy 
.45 revolver and an ice-ax. He hefted 
both gently as he started for the corri- 
dor toward Dogtown. "It blundered 
down the wrong corridor — and landed 
among the huskies. Listen — the dogs 
have broken their chains " 

The half-terrorized howl of the dog 
pack had changed to' a wild hunting 
melee. The voices of the dogs thun- 
dered in the narrow corridors, and 
through them came a low rippling snarl 
of distilled hate. A shrill of pain, a 
dozen snarling yelps. 

Connant broke for the door. Close 
behind him, McReady, then Barclay and 
Commander Garry came. Other men 
broke for the Ad Building, and weapons 
— the sledge house. Pomroy, in charge 
of Big Magnet's five cows, started down 
the corridor in the opposite direction — 
he had a six-foot-handled, long-tined 
pitchfork in mind. 

Barclay slid to a halt, as McReady 's 
giant bulk turned abruptly away from 
the tunnel leading to Dogtown, and van- 
ished off at an angle. Uncertainly, the 
mechanician wavered a moment, the fire 



extinguisher in his hands, hesitating 
from one side to the other. Then he 
was racing after Connant's broad back. 
Whatever McReady had in mind, he 
could be trusted to make it work. 

Connant stopped at the bend in the 
corridor. His breath hissed suddenly 

through his throat. "Great God " 

The revolver exploded thunderously ; 
three numbing, palpable waves of sound 
crashed through the confined corridors. 
Two more. The revolver dropped to the 
hard-packed snow of the trail, and Bar- 
clay saw the ice-ax shift into defensive 
position. Connant's powerful body 
blocked his vision, but beyond he heard 
something mewing, and, insanely, chuck- 
ling. The dogs were quieter ; there was 
a deadly seriousness in their low snarls. 
Taloned feet scratched at hard-packed 
snow, broken chains were clinking and 
tangling. 

Connant shifted abruptly, and Barclay 
could see what lay beyond. For a sec- 
ond he stood frozen, then his breath 
went out in a gusty curse. The Thing 
launched itself at Connant, the powerfid 
arms of the man swung the ice-ax flat- 
side first at what might have been a 
head. It scrunched horribly, and the 
tattered flesh, ripped by a half-dozen 
savage huskies, leapt to its feet again. 
The red eyes blazed with an unearthly 
hatred, an unearthly, unkillable vitality. 

Barclay turned the fire extinguisher 
on it ; the blinding, blistering stream of 
chemical spray confused it, baffled it, 
together with the savage attacks of the 
huskies, not for long afraid of anything 
that did, or could live, held it at bay. 

McReady wedged men out of his way 
and drove down the narrow corridor 
packed with men unable to reach the 
scene. There was a sure fore-planned 
drive to McReady's attack. One of the 
giant blow-torche» used in warming the 
plane's engines was in his bronzed hands. 
It roared gustily as he turned the corner 
and opened the valve. The mad mew- 
ing hissed louder. The dogs scrambled 



74 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



back from the three-foot lance of blue- 
hot flame. 

"Bar, get a power cable, run it in 
somehow. And a handle. We can elec- 
trocute tin's — monster, if I don't incin- 
erate it." McReady spoke with an 
authority of planned action. Barclay 
turned down the long corridor to the 
power plant, but already before him Nor- 
ris and Van Wall were racing down. 

BARCLAY found the cable in the 
electrical cache in the tunnel wall. In 
a half minute he was hacking at it, 
walking back. Van Wall's voice rang 
out in warning shout of "Power!" as 
the emergency gasoline-powered dynamo 
thudded into action. Half a dozen other 
men were down there now ; the coal, 
kindling were going into the firebox of 
the steam power plant. Norris, cursing 
in a low, deadly monotone, was working 
with quick, sure fingers on the other end 
of Barclay's cable, splicing in a con- 
tactor in one of the power leads. 

The dogs had fallen back when Bar- 
clay reached the corridor bend, fallen 
back before a furious monstrosity that 
glared from baleful red eyes, mewing in 
trapped hatred. The dogs were a semi- 
circle of red-dipped muzzles with a 
fringe of glistening white teeth, whining 
with a vicious eagerness that near 
matched the fury of the red eyes. Mc- 
Ready stood confidently alert at the cor- 
ridor bend, the gustily muttering torch 
held loose and ready for action in his 
hands. He stepped aside without mov- 
ing his eyes from the beast as Barclay 
came up. There was a slight, tight 
smile on his lean, bronzed face. 

Norris' voice called down the corri- 
dor, and Barclay stepped forward. The 
cable was taped to the long handle of a 
snow-shovel, the two conductors split, 
and held 18 inches apart by a scrap of 
lumber lashed at right angles across the 
far end of the handle.. Bare copper con- 
ductors, charged with 220 volts, glinted 
in the light of pressure lamps. The 



Things mewed and hated and dodged. 
McReady advanced to Barclay's side. 
The dogs beyond sensed the plan with 
the almost-telepathic intelligence of 
trained huskies. Their whining grew 
shriller, softer, their mincing steps car- 
ried them nearer. Abruptly a huge, 
night-black Alaskan leapt onto the 
trapped thing. It turned squalling, sa- 
ber-clawed feet slashing. 

Barclay leapt forward and jabbed. A 
weird, shrill scream rose and choked out. 
The smell of burnt flesh in the corridor 
intensified ; greasy smoke curled up. 
The echoing pound of the gas-electric 
dynamo down the corridor became a 
slogging thud. 

The red eyes clouded over in a stiff- 
ening, jerking travesty of a face. Arm- 
like, leglike members quivered and 
jerked. The dogs leapt forward, and 
Barclay yanked back his shovel-handled 
weapon. The thing on the snow did not 
move as gleaming teeth ripped it open. 

yi. 

GARRY looked about the crowded 
room. Thirty-two men, some tensed 
nervously standing against, the wall, 
some uneasily relaxed, some sitting, 
most perforce standing, as intimate as 
sardines. Thirty-two, plus the five en- 
gaged in sewing up wounded dogs, made 
thirty-seven, the total personnel. 

Garry started speaking. "All right, 
I guess we're here. Some of you— three 
or four at most — saw what happened. 
All of you have seen that thing on the 
table, and can get a general idea. Any- 
one hasn't, I'll lift- " His hand 

strayed to the tarpaulin bulking over the 
thing on the table. There was an acrid 
odor of singed flesh seeping out of it. 
The men stirred restlessly, hasty denials. 

"It looks rather as though Charnauk 
isn't going to lead any more teams," 
Garry went on. "Blair wants to get at 
this thing, and make some more de- 
tailed examination. We want to know 



"WHO GOES THERE?" 



75 



what happened, and make sure right now 
that this is permanently, totally dead. 
Right?" 

Connant grinned. "Anybody that 
doesn't can sit up with it to-night." 

"All right then, Blair, what can you 
say about it? What was it?" Garry 
turned to the little biologist. 

"I wonder if we ever saw its natural 
form," Blair looked at the covered mass. 
"It may have been imitating the beings 
that built that ship — but I don't think 
it was. I think that was its true form. 
Those of us who were up near the bend 
saw the thing in action ; the thing on 
the table is the result. When it got 
loose, apparently, it started looking 
around. Antarctica still frozen as it was 
ages ago when the creature first saw it 
— and froze. From my observations 
while it was thawing out, and the bits 
of tissue I cut and hardened then, I 
think it was native to a hotter planet 
than Earth. It couldn't, in its natural 
form, stand the temperature. There is 
no life-form on Earth that can live in 
Antarctica during the winter, but the 
best compromise is the dog. It found 
the dogs, and somehow got near enough 
to Charnauk to get him. The others 
smelled it — heard it — I don't know — 
anyway they went wild, and broke 
chains, and attacked it before it was fin- 
ished. The thing we found was part 
Charnauk, queerly only half-dead, part 
Charnauk half-digested by the jellylike 
protoplasm of that creature, and part the 
remains of the thing we originally found, 
sort of melted down to the basic proto- 
plasm. 

"When the dogs attacked it, it turned 
into the best fighting thing it could think 
of. Some other-world beast apparently." 

"Turned," snapped Garry. "How?" 

"Every living thing is made up of 
jelly — protoplasm and minute, submicro- 
scopic tilings called nuclei, which control 
the bulk, the protoplasm. This thing 
was just a modification of that same 
world-wide plan of Nature ; cells made 



up of protoplasm, controlled by infinitely 
tinier nuclei. You physicists might com- 
pare it — an individual cell of any living 
thing — with an atom ; the bulk of the 
atom, the space-filling part, is made up 
of the electron orbits, but the character 
of the thing is determined by the atomic 
nucleus. 

"This isn't wildly beyond what we 
already know. It's just a modification 
we haven't seen before. It's as natural, 
as logical, as any other manifestation of 
life. It obeys exactly the same laws. 
The cells are made of protoplasm, their 
character determined by the nucleus. 

"ONLY in this creature, the cell- 
nuclei can control those cells at will. It 
disgested Charnauk, and as it digested, 
studied every cell of his tissue, and 
shaped its own cells to imitate them ex- 
actly. Parts of it — parts that had time 
to finish changing — are dog-cells. But 
they don't have dog-cell nuclei." Blair 
lifted a fraction of the tarpaulin. A torn 
dog's leg, with stiff gray fur protruded. 
"That, for instance, isn't dog at all ; it's 
imitation. Some parts I'm uncertain 
about ; the nucleus was hiding itself, 
covering up with dog-cell imitation nu- 
cleus. In time, not even a microscope 
would have shown the difference." 

"Suppose," asked Norris bitterly, "it 
had had lots of time?" 

"Then it would have been a dog. 
The other dogs would have accepted it. 
We would have accepted it. I don't 
think anything would have distinguished 
it, not microscope, nor X-ray, nor any 
other means. This is a member of a 
supremely intelligent race, a race that 
has learned the deepest secrets of biol- 
ogy, and turned them to its use." 

"What was it planning to do?" Bar- 
clay looked at the humped tarpaulin. 

Blair grinned unpleasantly. The wa- 
vering halo of thin hair round his bald 
pate wavered in a stir of air. "Take 
over the world, I imagine." 

"Take over the world ! Just it, all by 



76 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



itself?" Connant gasped. "Set itself up 
as a lone dictator?" 

"No," Blair shook his head. The scal- 
pel he had been fumbling in his bony 
ringers dropped; he bent to pick it up, 
so that his face was hidden as he spoke. 
"It would become the population of the 
world." 

"Become — populate the world? Does 
it reproduce asexually?" 

Blair shook his hand and gulped. 
"It's — it doesn't have to. It weighed 
85 pounds. Charnauk weighed about 90. 
It would have become Charnauk, and 
had 85 pounds left, to become — oh, Jack 
for instance, or Chinook. It can imi- 
tate anything — that is, become anything. 
If it had reached the Antarctic Sea, it 
would have become a seal, maybe two 
seals. They might have attacked a killer 
whale, and become either killers, or a 
herd of seals. Or maybe it would have 
caught an albatross, or a skua gull, 
and flown to South America." 

Norris cursed softly. "And every 
time it digested something, and imitated 
it " 

"It would have had its original bulk 
left; to start again," Blair finished. 
"Nothing would kill it. It has no natu- 
ral enemies, because it becomes what- 
ever it wants to. If a killer whale at- 
tacked it, it would become a killer whale. 
If it was an albatross, and an eagle at- 
tacked it, it would become an eagle. 
Lord, it might become a female eagle. 
Go back — build a nest and lay eggs !" 

"Are you sure that thing from hell is 
dead?" Dr. Copper asked softly. 

"Yes, thank Heaven," the little biolo- 
gist gasped. "After they drove the dogs 
off, I stood there poking Bar's electro- 
cution thing into it for five minutes. It's 
dead and — cooked." 

"Then we can only give thanks that 
this is Antarctica, where there is not 
one, single, solitary, living thing for it 
to imitate, except these animals in camp." 

"Us," Blair giggled. "It can imitate 
us. Dogs can't make 400 miles to the 



sea; there's no food. There aren't any 
skua gulls to imitate at this season. 
There aren't any penguins this far in- 
land. There's nothing that can reach the 
sea from this point — except us. We've 
got brains. We can do it. Don't you 
see — it's got to imitate us — it's got to 
be one of us — that's the ontly way it can 
fly an airplane — fly a plane for tzvo 
hours, and rule — be — all Earth's inhabi- 
tants. A world for the taking — if it imi- 
tates us! 

"It didn't know yet. It hadn't had a 
chance to learn. It was rushed — hur- 
ried — took the thing nearest its own size. 
Look — I'm Pandora ! I opened the box ! 
And the only hope that can come out 
is — that nothing can come out. You 
didn't see me. I did it. I fixed it. I 
smashed every magneto. Not a plane 
can fly. Nothing can fly." Blair gig- 
gled and lay down on the floor crying. 

CHIEF PILOT Van Wall made a 
dive for the door. His feet were fading 
echoes in the corridors as Dr. Copper 
bent unhurriedly over the little man on 
the floor. From his office at the end of 
the room he brought something, and in- 
jected a solution into Blair's arm. "He 
might come out of it when he wakes 
up," he sighed rising. McReady helped 
him lift the biologist onto a near-by 
bunk. "It all depends on whether we 
can convince him that thing is dead." 

Van Wall ducked into the shack 
brushing his heavy blond beard absently. 
"I didn't think a biologist would do a 
thing like that up thoroughly. He 
missed the spares in the second cache. 
It's all right. I smashed them." 

Commander Garry nodded. "I was 
wondering about the radio." 

Dr. Copper snorted. "You don't think 
it can leak out on a radio wave do you? 
You'd have five rescue attempts in the 
next three months if you stop the broad- 
casts. The thing to do is talk loud and 
not make a sound. Now I wonder " 

McReady looked speculatively at the 



"WHO GOES THERE?" 



77 



doctor. "It might be like an infectious 
disease. Everything that drank any of 
its blood " 

Copper shook his head. "Blair missed 
something. Imitate it may, but it has, to 
a certain extent, its own body chemis- 
try, its own metabolism. If it didn't, 
it would become a dog — and be a dog 
and nothing more. It has to be an imi- 
tation dog. Therefore you can detect it 
by serum tests. And its chemistry, since 
it comes from another world, must be so 
wholly, radically different that a few 
cells, such as gained by drops of blood, 
would be treated as disease germs by 
the dog, or human body." 

"Blood — would one of those imita- 
tions bleed?" Norris demanded. 

"Surely. Nothing mystic about blood. 
Muscle is about 90% water; blood dif- 
fers only in having a couple per cent 
more water, and less connective tissue. 
They'd bleed all right," Copper assured 
him. 

Blair sat up in his bunk suddenly. 
"Connant — where's Connant ?" 

The physicist moved over toward the 
little biologist. "Here I am. What do 
you want ?" 

"Are you ?" giggled Blair. He lapsed 
back into the bunk contorted with silent 
laughter. 

Connant looked at him blankly. 
"Huh? Am I what?" 

"Are you there?" Blair burst into 
gales of laughter. "Are you Connant? 
The beast wanted to be a man — not a 
dog " 

VII. 

DR. COPPER rose wearily from the 
bunk, and washed the hypodermic care- 
fully. The little tinkles it made seemed 
loud in the packed room, now that Blair's 
gurgling laughter had finally quieted. 
Copper looked toward Garry and shook 
his head slowly. "Hopeless, I'm afraid. 
I don't think we can ever convince him 
the thing is dead now." 

Norris laughed uncertainly. "I'm not 



sure you can convince me. Oh, damn 
you, McReady." 

"McReady?" Commander Garry 
turned to look from Norris to McReady 
curiously. 

"The nightmares," Norris explained. 
"He had a theory about the nightmares 
we had at the Secondary Station after 
finding that thing." 

"And that was?" Garry looked at 
McReady levelly. 

Norris answered for him, jerkily, un- 
easily. "That the creature wasn't dead, 
had a sort of enormously slowed exist- 
ence, an existence that permitted it, none 
the less, to be vaguely aware of the pass- 
ing of time, of our coming, after endless 
years. I had a dream it could imitate 
things." 

"Well," Copper grunted, "it can." 

"Don't be an ass," Norris snapped. 
"That's not what's bothering me. In the 
dream it could read minds, read thoughts 
and ideas and mannerisms." 

"What's so bad about that ? It seems 
to be worrying you more than the 
thought of the joy we're going to have 
with a mad man in an Antarctic camp." 
Copper nodded toward Blair's sleeping 
form. 

McReady shook his great head slowly. 
"You know that Connant is Connant, be- 
cause he not merely looks like Connant 
— which we're beginning to believe that 
beast might be able to do — but he thinks 
like Connant, talks like Connant, moves 
himself around as Connant does. That 
takes more than merely a body that 
looks like him ; that takes Connant 's own 
mind, and thoughts and mannerisms. 
Therefore, though you know that the 
thing might make itself look like Con- 
nant, you aren't much bothered, because 
you know it has a mind from another 
world, a totally unhuman mind, that 
couldn't possibly react and think and 
talk like a man we know, and do it so 
well as to fool us for a moment. The 
idea of the creature imitating one of us 
is fascinating, but unreal because it is 



78 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



too completely unhuman to deceive us. 
It doesn't have a human mind." 

"As I said before," Norris repeated, 
looking steadily at McReady, "you can 
say the damnedest things at the damned- 
est times. Will you be so good as to fin- 
ish that thought — one way or the other ?" 

Kinner, the scar-faced expedition 
cook, had been standing near Connant. 
Suddenly he moved down the length of 
the crowded room toward his familiar 
gaJley. He shook the ashes from the 
galley stove noisily. 

"It would do it no good," said Dr. 
Copper, softly as though thinking out 
loud, "to merely look like something it 
was trying to imitate ; it would have to 
understand its feelings, its reactions. It 
is unhuman ; it has powers of imitation 
beyond any conception of man. A good 
actor, by training himself, can imitate 
another man, another man's mannerisms, 
well enough to fool most people. Of 
course no actor could imitate so perfectly 
as to deceive men who had been living 
with the imitated one in the complete 
lack of privacy of an antarctic camp. 
That would take a super-human skill." 

"Oh, you've got the bug too ?" Norris 
cursed softly. 

CONNANT, standing alone at one 
end of the room, looked about him wildly, 
his face white. A gentle eddying of 
the men had crowded them slowly down 
toward the other end of the room, so 
that he stood quite alone. "My God, 
will you two Jeremiahs shut up?" Con- 
nant's voice shook. "What am I ? Some 
kind of a microscopic specimen you're 
dissecting? Some unpleasant worm 
you're discussing in the third person?" 

McReady looked up at him ; his slowly 
twisting hands stopped for a moment. 
"Having a lovely time. Wish you were 
here. Signed : Everybody. 

"Connant, if you think you're having 
a hell of a time, just move over on the 
other end for a while. You've got one 
thing we haven't ; you know what the 



answer is. I'll tell you this, rigbt now 
you're the most feared and respected man 
in Big Magnet." 

"Lord, I wish you could see your 
eyes," Connant gasped. "Stop staring, 
will yeu ! What the hell are you going 
to do?" 

"Have you any suggestions, Dr. Cop- 
per?" Commander Garry asked steadily. 
"The present situation is impossible." 

"Oh, is it?" Connant snapped. "Come 
over here and look at that crowd. By 
Heaven, they look exactly like that gang 
of huskies around the corridor bend. 
Benning, will you stop hefting that 
damned ice-ax ?" 

The coppery blade rang on the floor 
as the aviation mechanic nervously 
dropped it. He bent over and picked it 
up instantly, hefting it slowly, turning 
it in his hands, his brown eyes moving 
jerkily about the room. 

Copper sat down on the bunk beside 
Blair. The wood creaked noisily in the 
room. Far down a corridor, a dog 
yelped in pain, and the dog-drivers' 
tense voices floated softly back. "Mi- 
croscopic examination," said the doctor 
thoughtfully, "would be useless, as Blair 
pointed out. Considerable time has 
passed. However, serum tests would 
be definitive." 

"Serum tests? What do you mean 
exactly?" Commander Garry asked. 

"If I had a rabbit that had been in- 
jected with human blood — a poison to 
rabbits, of course, as is the blood of any 
animal save that of another rabbit — and 
the injections continued in increasing 
doses for some time, the rabbit would 
be human-immune. If a small quantity 
of its blood were drawn off, allowed to 
separate in a test-tube, and to the clear 
serum, a bit of human blood were added, 
there would be a visible reaction, prov- 
ing the blood was human. If cow, or 
dog blood were added — or any protein 
material other than that one thing, hu- 
man blood — no reaction would take 
place. That would prove definitely." 



"WHO GOES THERE?" 



79 



"Can you suggest where I might catch 
a rabbit for you, Doc?" Norris asked. 
"That is, nearer than Australia ; we don't 
want to waste time going that far." 

"I know there aren't any rabbits in 
Antarctica," Copper nodded, "but that is 
simply the usual animal. Any animal 
except man will do. A dog for instance. 
But it will take several days, and due 
to the greater size of the animal, con- 
siderable blood. Two of us will have 
to contribute." 

"Would I do?" Garry asked. 

"That will make two," Copper nod- 
ded. "I'll get to work on it right away." 

"What about Connant in the mean- 
time," Kinner demanded. "I'm going 
out that door and head off for the Ross 
Sea before I cook for him." 

"He may be human " Copper 

started. 

Connant burst out in a flood of curses. 
"Human! May be human, you damned 
saw-bones ! What in hell do you think 
I am ?" 

"A monster," Copper snapped sharply. 
"Now shut up and listen." Connant's 
face drained of color and he sat down 
heavily as the indictment was put in 
words. "Until we know — you know as 
well as we do that we have reason to 
question the fact, and only you know 
how that question is to be answered — 
we may reasonably be expected to lock 
you up. If you are — unhuman — you're 
a lot more dangerous than poor Blair 
there, and I'm going to see that he's 
locked up thoroughly. I expect that his 
next stage will be a violent desire to 
kill you, all the dogs, and probably all 
of us. When he wakes, he will be con- 
vinced we're all unhuman, and nothing 
on the planet will ever change his con- 
viction. It would be kinder to let him 
die, but we can't do that, of course. 
He's going in one shack, and you can 
stay in Cosmos House with your cosmic 
ray apparatus. Which is about what 
you'd do anyway. I've got to fix up a 
couple of dogs." 



Connant nodded bitterly. "I'm hu- 
man. Hurry that test. Your eyes — 
Lord, I wish you could see your eyea. 
staring " 

COMMANDER Garry watched anx- 
iously as Clark, the dog-handler, held 
the big brown Alaskan husky, while Cop- 
per began the injection treatment. The 
dog was not anxious to cooperate ; the 
needle was painful, and already he'd 
experienced considerable needle work 
that morning. Five stitches held closed 
a slash that ran from his shoulder across 
the ribs half way down his body. One 
long fang was broken off short ; the 
missing part was to be found half-buried 
in the shoulder bone of the monstrous 
thing on the table in the Ad Building. 

"How long will that take?" Garry 
asked, pressing his arm gently. It was 
sore from the prick of the needle Dr. 
Copper had used to withdraw blood. 

Copper shrugged. "I don't know, to 
be frank. I know the general method, 
I've used it on rabbits. But I haven't 
experimented with dogs. They're big, 
clumsy animals to work with ; naturally 
rabbits are preferable, and serve ordi- 
narily. In civilized places you can buy 
a stock of human-immune rabbits from 
suppliers, and not many investigators 
take the trouble to prepare their own." 

"What do they want with them back 
there?" Clark asked. 

"Criminology is one large field. A 
says he didn't murder B, but that the 
blood on his shirt came from killing a 
chicken. The State makes a test, then 
it's up to A to explain how it is the 
blood reacts on human-immune rabbits, 
but not on chicken-immunes." 

"What are we going to do with Blair 
in the meantime?" Garry asked wearily. 
"It's all right to let him sleep where he 
is for a while, but when he wakes 



"Barclay and Benning are fitting some 
bolts on the door of Cosmos House," 
Copper replied grimly. "Connant's act- 



80 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



ing like a gentleman. I think perhaps 
the way the other men look at him 
makes him rather want privacy. Lord 
knows, heretofore we've all of us indi- 
vidually prayed for a little privacy." 

Clark laughed brittley. "Not any 
more, thank you. The more the mer- 
rier." 

"Blair," Copper went on, "will also 
have to have privacy — and locks. He's 
going to have a pretty definite plan in 
mind when he wakes up. Ever hear the 
old story of how to stop hoof-and-mouth 
disease in cattle?" 

Clark and Garry shook their heads 
silently. 

"If there isn't any hoof-and-mouth 
disease, there won't be any hoof-and- 
mouth disease," Copper explained. "You 
get rid of it by killing every animal that 
exhibits it, and every animal that's been 
near the diseased animal. Blair's a bi- 
ologist, and knows that story. He's 
afraid of this thing we loosed. The an- 
swer is probably pretty clear in his mind 
now. Kill everybody and everything in 
this camp before a skua gull or a wan- 
dering albatross coming in with the 
spring chances out this way and — catches 
the disease." 

Clark's lips curled in a twisted grin. 
"Sounds logical to me. If things get too 
bad — maybe we'd better let Blair get 
loose. It would save us committing 
suicide. We might also make something 
of a vow that if things get bad, we see 
that that does happen." 

COPPER laughed softly. "The last 
man alive in Big Magnet — wouldn't be 
a man," he pointed out. "Somebody's 
got to kill those — creatures that don't 
desire to kill themselves, you know. We 
don't have enough thermite to do it all 
at once, and the decanite explosive 
wouldn't help much. I have an idea 
that even small pieces of one of those 
beings would be self-sufficient." 

"If," said Garry thoughtfully, "they 
can modify their protoplasm at will, 



won't they simply modify themselves to 
birds and fly away? They can read all 
about birds, and imitate their structure 
without even meeting them. Or imi- 
tate, perhaps, birds of their home 
planet." 

Copper shook his head, and helped 
Clark to free the dog. "Man studied 
birds for centuries, trying to learn how 
to make a machine to fly like them. He 
never did do the trick; his final success 
came when he broke away entirely and 
tried new methods. Knowing the gen- 
eral idea, and knowing the detailed 
structure of wing and bone and nerve- 
tissue is something far, far different. 
And as for other-world birds, perhaps, 
in fact very probably, the atmospheric 
conditions here are so vastly different 
that their birds couldn't fly. Perhaps, 
even, the being came from a planet like 
Mars with such a thin atmosphere that 
there were no birds." 

Barclay came into the building, trail- 
ing a length of airplane control cable. 
"It's finished, Doc. Cosmos House can't 
be opened from the inside. Now where 
do we put Blair?" 

Copper looked toward Garry. "There 
wasn't any biology building. I don't 
know where we can isolate him." 

"How about East Cache ?" Garry said 
after a moment's thought. "Will Blair 
be able to look after himself — or need 
attention ?" 

"He'll be capable enough. We'll be 
the ones to watch out," Copper assured 
him grimly. "Take a stove, a couple of 
bags of coal, necessary supplies and a 
few tools to fix it up. Nobody's been 
out there since last fall, have they?" 

Garry shook his head. "If he gets 
noisy — I thought that might be a good 
idea." 

Barclay hefted the tools he was carry- 
ing and looked up at Garry. "If the 
muttering he's doing now is any sign, 
he's going to sing away the night hours. 
And we won't like his song." 

"What's he saying?" Copper asked. 



"WHO GOES THERE?" 



81 



Barclay shook his head. "I didn't 
care to listen much. You can if you 
want to. But I gathered that the blasted 
idiot had all the dreams McReady had, 
and a few more. He slept beside the 
thing when we stopped on the trail com- 
ing in from Secondary Magnetic, re- 
member. He dreamt the thing was 
alive, and dreamt more details. And — 
damn his soul — knew it wasn't all dream, 
or had reason to. He knew it had tele- 
pathic powers that were stirring vaguely, 
and that it could not only read minds, 
but project thoughts. They weren't 
dreams, you see. They were stray 
thoughts that thing was broadcasting, 
the way Blair's broadcasting his thoughts 
now — a sort of telepathic muttering in 
its sleep. That's why he knew so much 
about its powers. I guess you and I, 
Doc, weren't so sensitive — if you want 
to believe in telepathy." 

"I have to," Copper sighed. "Dr. 
Rhine of Duke University has shown 
that it exists, shown that some are much 
more sensitive than others." 

"Well, if you want to learn a lot of 
details, go listen in on Blair's broadcast. 
He's driven most of the boys out of the 
Ad Building ; Kinner's rattling pans like 
coal going down a chute. When he 
can't rattle a pan, he shakes ashes. 

"By the way, Commander, what are 
we going to do this spring, now the 
planes are out of it?" 

Garry sighed. "I'm afraid our expe- 
dition is going to be a loss. We cannot 
divide our strength now." 

"It won't be a loss — if we continue to 
live, and come out of this," Copper 
promised him. "The find we've made, 
if we can get it under control, is im- 
portant enough. The cosmic ray data, 
magnetic work, and atmospheric work 
won't be greatly hindered." 

GARRY laughed mirthlessly. "I was 
just thinking of the radio broadcasts. 
Telling half the world about the won- 
derful results of our exploration flights, 



trying to fool men like Byrd and Ells- 
worth back home there that we're doing 
something." 

Copper nodded gravely. "They'll 
know something's wrong. But men like 
that have judgment enough to know we 
wouldn't do tricks without some sort of 
reason, and will wait for our return to 
judge us. I think it comes to diis : men 
who know enough to recognize our de- 
ception will wait for our return. Men 
who haven't discretion and faith enough 
to wait will not have the experience to 
detect any fraud. We know enough of 
the conditions here to put through a 
good bluff." 

"Just so they don't send 'rescue' ex- 
peditions," Garry prayed. "When — if — 
we're ever ready to come out, we'll have 
to send word to Captain ForsyUie to 
bring a stock of magnetos with him 
when he comes down. But — never mind 
that." 

"You mean if we don't come out?" 
asked Barclay. "I was wondering if a 
nice running account of an eruption or 
an earthquake via radio — with a swell 
windup by using a stick of decanite un- 
der the microphone — would help. Noth- 
ing, of course, will entirely keep people 
out. One of those swell, melodramatic 
'last-man-alive-scenes' might make 'em 
go easy though." 

Garry smiled with genuine humor. 
"Is everybody in camp trying to figure 
that out too?" 

Copper laughed. "What do you think, 
Garry? We're confident we can win 
out. But not too easy about it, I guess." 

Clark grinned up from the dog he was 
petting into calmness. "Confident, did 
you say, Doc?" 

VIII. 

BLAIR MOVED restlessly around 
the small shack. His eyes jerked and 
quivered in vague, fleeting glances at the 
four men with him ; Barclay, six feet tall 
and weighing over 190 pounds ; Mc- 
Ready, a bronze giant of a man; Dr. 



82 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



Copper, short, squatly powerful ; and 
Benning, five-feet-ten of wiry strength. 

Blair was huddled up against the far 
wall of the East Cache cabin, his gear 
piled in the middle of the floor beside 
the heating stove, forming an island be- 
tween him and the four men. His bony 
hands clenched and fluttered, terrified. 
His pale eyes wavered uneasily as his 
bald, freckled head darted about in bird- 
like motion. 

"I don't want anybody coming here. 
I'll cook my own food," he snapped 
nervously. "Kinner may be human now, 
but I don't believe it. I'm going to get 
out of here, but I'm not going to eat 
any food you send me. I want cans. 
Sealed cans." 

"O. K., Blair, we'll bring 'em tonight," 
Barclay promised. "You've got coal, 
and the fire's started. I'll make a last 
" Barclay started forward. 

Blair instantly scurried to the farthest 
corner. "Get out ! Keep away from 
me, you monster !" the little biologist 
shrieked, and tried to claw his way 
through the wall of the shack. "Keep 
away from me — keep away — I won't be 
absorbed — I won't be " 

Barclay relaxed and moved back. Dr. 
Copper shook his head. "Leave him 
alone, Bar. It's easier for him to fix the 
thing himself. We'll have to fix the 
door, I think " 

The four men let themselves out. 
Efficiently, Benning and Barclay fell to 
work. There were no locks in Ant- 
arctica; there wasn't enough privacy to 
make them needed. But powerful screws 
had been driven in each side of the door 
frame, and the spare aviation control 
cable, immensely strong, woven steel 
wire, was rapidly caught between them 
and drawn taut. Barclay went to work 
with a drill and a key-hole saw. Pres- 
ently he had a trap cut in the door 
through which goods could be passed 
without unlashing the entrance. Three 
powerful hinges from a stock-crate, two 
hasps and a pair of three-inch cotter- 



pins made it proof against opening from 
the other side. 

Blair moved about restlessly inside. 
He was dragging something over to the 
door with panting gasps and muttering, 
frantic curses. Barclay opened the 
hatch and glanced in, Dr. Copper peer- 
ing over his shoulder. Blair had moved 
the heavy bunk against the door. It 
could not be opened without his coop- 
eration now. 

"Don't know but what the poor man's 
right at that," McReady sighed. "If 
he gets loose, it is his avowed intention 
to kill each and all of us as quickly as 
possible, which is something we don't 
agree with. But we've something on 
our side of that door that is worse than 
a homicidal maniac. If one or the other 
has to get loose, I think I'll come up and 
undo those lashings here." 

Barclay grinned. "You let me know, 
and I'll show you how to get these off 
fast. Let's go back." 

The sun was painting the northern 
horizon in multi-colored rainbows still, 
though it was two hours below the hori- 
zon. The field of drift swept off to the 
north, sparkling under its flaming colors 
in a million reflected glories. Low 
mounds of rounded white on the north- 
ern horizon showed the Magnet Range 
was barely awash above the sweeping 
drift. Little eddies of wind-lifted snow 
swirled away from their skis as they 
set out toward the main encampment two 
miles away. The spidery finger of the 
broadcast radiator lifted a gaunt black 
needle against the white of the Antarctic 
continent. The snow under their skis 
was like fine sand, hard and gritty. 

"SPRING," said Benning bitterly, "is 
came. Ain't we got fun ! And I've been 
looking forward to getting away from 
this blasted hole in the ice." 

"I wouldn't try it now, if I were you." 
Barclay grunted. "Guys that set out 
from here in the next few days are go- 
ing to be marvelously unpopular." 



"WHO GOES THERE?" 



83 



"How is your dog getting along, Dr. 
Copper?" McReady asked. "Any re- 
sults yet?" 

"In 30 hours? I wish there were. I 
gave him an injection of my blood to- 
day. But I imagine another five days 
will be needed. I don't know certainly 
enough to stop sooner." 

"I've been wondering — if Connant 
were — changed, would he have warned 
us so soon after the animal escaped? 
Wouldn't he have waited long enough 
for it to have a real chance to fix itself? 
Until we woke up naturally?" McReady 
asked slowly. 

"The thing is selfish. You didn't 
think it looked as though it were pos- 
sessed of a store of the higher justices, 
did you?" Dr. Copper pointed out. 
"Every part of it is all of it, every part 
of it is all for itself, I imagine. If Con- 
nant were changed, to save his skin, 
he'd have to — but Connant's feelings 
aren't changed ; they're imitated per- 
fectly, or they're his own. Naturally, 
the imitation, imitating perfectly Con- 
nant's feelings, would do exactly what 
Connant would do." 

"Say, couldn't Norris or Vane give 
Connant some kind of a test? If the 
thing is brighter than men, it might 
know more physics than Connant should, 
and they'd catch it out," Barclay sug- 
gested. 

Copper shook his head wearily. "Not 
if it reads minds. You can't plan a trap 
for it. Vane suggested that last night. 
Pie hoped it would answer some of the 
questions of physics he'd like to know 
answers to." 

"This expedition-of-four idea is going 
to make life happy." Benning looked at 
his companions. "Each of us with an 
eye on the others to make sure he doesn't 
do something — peculiar. Man, aren't 
we going to be a trusting bunch ! Each 
man eyeing his neighbors with the grand- 
est exhibition of faith and trust I'm 

beginning to know what Connant meant 
by 'I wish you could see .your eyes'. 

AST— 6 



Every now and then we all have it, I 
guess. One of you looks around with 
a sort of 'I-wonder-if-the-other-//jr£<?- 
are-look.' Incidentally, I'm not except- 
ing myself." 

"So far as we know, the animal is 
dead, with a slight question as to Con- 
nant. No other is suspected," McReady 
stated slowly. "The 'always-four' order 
is merely a precautionary measure." 

"I'm waiting for Garry to make it 
four-in-a-bunk," Barclay sighed. "I 
thought I didn't have any privacy before, 
but since that order " 

NONE WATCHED more tensely 
than Connant. A little sterile glass test- 
tube, half-filled with straw-colored fluid. 
One — two — three — four — five drops of 
the clear solution Dr. Copper had pre- 
pared from the drops of blood from 
Connant's arm. The tube was shaken 




carefully, then set in a beaker of clear, 
warm water. The thermometer read 
blood heat, a little thermostat clicked 



84 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



noisily, and the electric hotplate began 
to glow as the lights flickered slightly. 

Then — little white flecks of precipita- 
tion were forming, snowing down in the 
clear straw-colored fluid. "Lord," said 
Connant. He dropped heavily into a 
bunk, crying like a baby. "Six days—" 
Connant sobbed, "six days in there — 
wondering if that damned test would 
lie " 

Garry moved over silently, and slipped 
his arm across the physicist's back. 

"It couldn't lie," Dr. Copper said. 
"The dog was human-immune — and the 
serum reacted." 

"He's — all right?" Norris gasped. 
"Then — the animal is dead — dead for- 
ever?" 

"He is human," Copper spoke defi- 
nitely, "and the animal is dead." 

Kinner burst out laughing, laughing 
hysterically. McReady turned toward 
him and slapped his face with a me- 
thodical one-two, one-two action. The 
cook laughed, gulped, cried a moment, 
and sat up rubbing his cheeks, mumbling 
his thanks vaguely. "I was scared. 
Lord, I was scared " 

Norris laughed brittley. "You think 
we weren't, you ape ? You think maybe 
Connant wasn't?" 

The Ad Building stirred with a sud- 
den rejuvenation. Voices laughed, the 
men clustering around Connant spoke 
with unnecessarily loud voices, jittery, 
nervous voices relievedly friendly again. 
Somebody called out a suggestion, and 
a dozen started for their skis. Blair. 

Blair might recover Dr. Copper 

fussed with his test-tubes in nervous re- 
lief, trying solutions. The party of re- 
lief for Blair's shack started out the door, 
skis clapping noisily. Down the corri- 
dor, the dogs set up a quick yelping 
howl as the air of excited relief reached 
them. 

Dr. Copper fussed with his tubes. 
McReady noticed him first, sitting on 
the edge of the bunk, with two precipitin- 
whitened test-tubes of straw-colored 



fluid, his face whiter than the stuff in 
the tubes, silent tears slipping down from 
horror-widened eyes. 

McReady felt a cold knife of fear 
pierce through his heart and freeze in 
his breast. Dr. Copper looked up. 
"Garry," he called hoarsely. "Garry, 
for God's sake, come here." 

Commander Garry walked toward him 
sharply. Silence clapped down on the 
Ad Building. Connant looked up, rose 
stiffly from his seat. 

"Garry — tissue from the monster — 
precipitates too. It proves nothing. 
Nothing but — but the dog was monster- 
immune too. That one of the two con- 
tributing blood — one of us two-, you and 
I, Garry — one of us is a monster." 

IX. 

"BAR, CALL back those men before 
they tell Blair," McReady said quietly. 
Barclay went to the door; faintly his 
shouts came back to the tensely silent 
men in the room. Then he was back. 

"They're coming," he said. "I didn't 
tell them why. Just that Dr. Copper 
said not to go." 

"McReady," Garry sighed, "you're in 
command now. May God help you. I 
cannot." 

The bronzed giant nodded slowly, his 
deep eyes on Commander Garry. 

"I may be the one." Garry added. "I 
know I'm not, but I cannot prove it to 
you in any way. Dr. Copper's test has 
•broken down. The fact that he showed 
it was useless, when it was to the ad- 
vantage of the monster to have that use- 
•lessness not known, would seem to prove 
;he was human." 

Copper rocked back and forth slowly 
,on the bunk. "I know I'm human. T 
ican't prove it either. One of us two is 
'a liar, for that test cannot lie, and it says 
one of us is. I gave proof that the test 
,was wrong, which seems to prove I'm 
! human, and now Garry has given that 
argument which proves me human — • 



"WHO GOES THERE?" 



85 



which he, as the monster, should not do. 
Round and round and round and round 
and " 

Dr. Copper's head, then his neck and 
shoulders began circling slowly in time 
to the words. Suddenly he was lying 
back on the bunk, roaring with laugh- 
ter. "It doesn't have to prove one of 
us is a monster! It doesn't have to 
prove that at all! Ho-ho. If we're all 
monsters it works the same! We're all 
monsters — all of us — Connant and Garry 
and I — and all of you." 

"McReady," Van Wall, the blond- 
bearded Chief Pilot, called softly, "you 
were on the way to an M. D. when you 
took up meteorology, weren't you ? Can 
you make some kind of test ?" 

McReady went over to Copper slowly, 
took the hypodermic from his hand, and 
washed it carefully in 95% alcohol. 
Garry sat on the bunk -edge with wooden 
face, watching Copper and McReady ex- 
pressionlessly. "What Copper said is 
possible," McReady sighed. "Van, will 
you help here? Thanks." The filled 
needle jabbed into Copper's thigh. The 
man's laughter did not stop, but slowly 
faded into sobs, then sound sleep as the 
morphia took hold. 

McReady turned again. The men 
who had started for Blair stood at the 
far end of the room, skis dripping snow, 
their faces as white as their skis. Con- 
nant had a lighted cigarette in each hand ; 
one he was puffing absently, and staring 
at the floor. The heat of the one in his 
left hand attracted him and he stared at 
it, and the one in the other hand stu- 
pidly for a moment. He dropped one 
and crushed it under his heel slowly. 

"Dr. Copper," McReady repeated, 
"could be right. I know I'm human — 
but of course can't prove it. I'll repeat 
the test for my own information. Any 
of you others who wish to may do the 
same." 

Two minutes later, McReady held a 
test-tube with white precipitin settling 
slowly from straw-colored serum. "It 



reacts to human blood too, so they aren't 
both monsters." 

"I didn't think they were," Van Wall 
sighed. "That wouldn't suit the mon- 
ster either; we could have destroyed 
them if we knew. Why hasn't the mon- 
ster destroyed us, do you suppose? It 
seems to be loose." 

McReady snorted. Then laughed 
softly. "Elementary, my dear Watson. 
The monster wants to have life forms 
available. It cannot animate a dead 
body, apparently. It is just waiting — 
waiting until the best opportunities come. 
We who remain human, it is holding in 
reserve." 

Kinner shuddered violently. "Hey. 
Hey, Mac. Mac, would I know if I was 
a monster? Would I know if the mon- 
ster had already got me? Oh Lord, I 
may be a monster already." 

"You'd know," McReady answered. 

"But we wouldn't," Norris laughed 
shortly, half-hysterically. 

McReady looked at the vial of serum 
remaining. "There's one thing this 
damned stuff is good for, at that," he 
said thoughtfully. "Clark, will you and 
Van help me ? The rest of the gang bet- 
ter stick together here. Keep an eye on 
each other," he said bitterly. "See that 
you don't get into mischief, shall we 
say?" 

McReady started down the tunnel to- 
ward Dog Town, with Clark and Van 
Wall behind him. "You need more se- 
rum?" Clark asked. 

McReady shook his head. "Tests. 
There's four cows and a bull, and nearly 
seventy dogs down there. This stuff 
reacts only to human blood and — mon- 
sters." 

McREADY came back to the Ad 
Building and went silently to the wash 
stand. Clark and Van Wall joined him 
a moment later. Clark's lips had devel- 
oped a tic, jerking into sudden, unex- 
pected sneers. 

"What did you do?" Connant ex- 



86 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



ploded suddenly. "More immunizing?" 

Clark snickered, and stopped with a 
hiccough. "Immunizing. Haw! Im- 
mune all right." 

"That monster." said Van Wall stead- 
ily, "is quite logical. Our immune dog 
was quite all right, and we drew a lit- 
tle more serum for the tests. But we 
won't make any more." 

"Can't — can't you use one man's blood 
on another dog — " Norris began. 

"There aren't," said McReady softly, 
"any more dogs. Nor cattle, I might 
add." 

"No more dogs?" Benning sat down 
slowly. 

"They're very nasty when they start 
changing," Van Wall said precisely, "but 
slow. That electrocution iron you made 
up, Barclay, is very fast. There is only 
one dog left — our immune. The mon- 
ster left that for us, so we could play 

with our little test. The rest " He 

shrugged and dried his hands. 

"The cattle " gulped Kinner. 

"Also. Reacted very nicely. They 
look funny as hell when they start melt- 
ing. The beast hasn't any quick escape, 
when it's tied in dog chains, or halters, 
and it had to be to imitate." 

Kinner stood up slowly. His eyes 
darted around the room, and came to 
rest horribly quivering on a tin bucket 
in the galley. Slowly, step by step, he 
retreated toward the door, his mouth 
opening and closing silently, like a fish 
out of water. 

"The milk " he gasped. "I milked 

'em an hour ago " His voice broke 

into a scream as he dived through the 
door. He was out on the ice cap with- 
out vvindproof or heavy clothing. 

Van Wall looked after him for a mo- 
ment thoughtfully. "He's probably 
hopelessly mad," he said at length, "but 
he might be a monster escaping. He 
hasn't skis. Take a blow-torch — in 
case." 

The physical motion of the chase 
helped them ; something that needed do- 



ing. Three of the other men were qui- 
etly being sick. Norris was lying flat 
on his back, his face greenish, looking 
steadily at the bottom of the bunk above 
him. 

"Mac, how long have the — cows been 
not-cows " 

McReady shrugged his shoulders 
hopelessly. He went over to the milk 
bucket, and with his little tube of serum 
went to work on it. The milk clouded 
it, making certainty difficult. Finally 
he dropped the test-tube in the stand and 
shook his head. "It tests negatively. 
Which means either they were cows 
then, or that, being perfect imitations, 
they gave perfectly good milk." 

Copper stirred restlessly in his sleep 
and gave a gurgling cross between a 
snore and a laugh. Silent eyes fastened 
on him. "Would morphia — a mon- 
ster " somebody started to ask. 

"Lord knows." McReady shrugged. 
"It affects every Earthly animal I 
know of." 

Connant suddenly raised his head. 
"Mac ! The dogs must have swallowed 
pieces of the monster, and the pieces 
destroyed them! The dogs were where 
the monster resided. I was locked up. 
Doesn't that prove " 

Van Wall shook his head. "Sorry. 
Proves nothing about what you are, 
only proves what you didn't do." 

"It doesn't do that," McReady sighed. 
"We are helpless because we don't know 
enough, and so jittery we don't think 
straight. Locked up! Ever watch a 
white corpuscle of the blood go through 
the wall of a blood vessel? No? It 
sticks out a pseudopod. And there it 
is — on the far side of the wall." 

"Oh," said Van Wall unhappily. 
"The cattle tried to melt down, didn't 
they ? They could have melted down — 
become just a thread of stuff and leaked 
under a door to re-collect on the other 
side. Ropes — no — no, that wouldn't do 
it. They couldn't live in a sealed tank 



"WHO GOES THERE?" 



61 



"If," said McReady, "you shoot it 
through the heart, and it doesn't die, it's 
a monster. That's the best test I can 
think of, offhand." 

"No dogs," said Garry quietly, "and 
no cattle. It has to imitate men now. 
And locking up doesn't do any good. 
Your test might work, Mac, but I'm 
afraid it would be hard on the men." 

X. 

CLARK LOOKED up from the gal- 
ley stove as Van Wall, Barclay, Mc- 
Ready and Benning came in, brushing 
the drift from their clothes. The other 
men jammed into the Ad Building con- 
tinued studiously to do as they were do- 
ing, playing chess, poker, reading. Ral- 
sen was fixing a sledge on the table ; 
Vane and Norris had their heads to- 
gether over magnetic data, while Har- 
vey read tables in a low voice. 

Dr. Copper snored softly on the bunk. 
Garry was working with Dutton over a 
sheaf of radio messages on the corner 
of Dutton 's bunk and a small fraction 
of the radio table. Connant was using 
most of the table for Cosmic Ray sheets. 

Quite plainly through the corridor, 
despite two closed doors, they could hear 
Kinner's voice. Clark banged a kettle 
onto the galley stove and beckoned Mc- 
Ready silently. The meteorologist went 
over to him. 

"I don't mind the cooking so damn 
much," Clark said nervously, "but isn't 
there some way to stop that bird ? We 
all agreed that it would be safe to move 
him into Cosmos House." 

"Kinner?" McReady nodded toward 
the door. "I'm afraid not. I can dope 
him, I suppose, but we don't have an 
unlimited supply of morphia, and he's 
not in danger of losing his mind. Just 
hysterical." 

"Well, we're in danger of losing ours. 
You've been out for an hour and a half. 
That's been going on steadily ever since, 



and it was going for two hours before. 
There's a limit, you know." 

Garry wandered over slowly, apolo- 
getically. For an instant, McReady 
caught the feral spark of fear — horror 
— in Clark's eyes, and knew at the same 
instant it was in his own. Garry — Garry 
or Copper — was certainly a monster. 

"If you could stop that, I think it 
would be a sound policy, Mac," Garry 
spoke quietly. "There are — tensions 
enough in this room. We agreed that 
it would be safe for Kinner in there, be- 
cause every one else in camp is under 
constant eyeing." Garry shivered 
slightly. "And try, try in God's name, 
to find some test that will work." 

McReady sighed. "Watched or un- 
watched, everyone's tense. Blair's 
jammed the trap so it won't open now. 
Says he's got food enough, and keeps 
screaming 'Go away, go away — you're 
monsters. I won't be absorbed. I won't. 
I'll tell men when they come. Go away.' 
So — we went away." 

"There's no other test?" Garry 
pleaded. 

McReady shrugged his shoulders. 
"Copper was perfectly right. The serum 
test could be absolutely definitive if it 
hadn't been — contaminated. But that's 
the only dog left, and he's fixed now. 

"Chemicals? Chemical tests?" 

McReady shook his head. "Our 
chemistry isn't that good. I tried the 
microscope you know." 

Garry nodded. "Monster-dog and 
real dog were identical. But — you've 
got to go on. What are we going to do 
after dinner ?" 

VAN WALL had joined them qui- 
etly. "Rotation sleeping. Half the 
crowd sleep ; half awake. I wonder how 
many of us are monsters ? All the dogs 
were. We thought we were safe, but 
somehow it got Copper — or you." Van 
Wall's eyes flashed uneasily. "It may 
have gotten every one of you — all of 
you but myself may be wondering, look- 



83 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



ing. No, that's not possible. You'd just 
spring then. I'd be helpless. We hu- 
mans must somehow have the greater 
numbers now. But " he stopped. 

McReady laughed shortly. "You're 
doing what Norris complained of in me. 
Leaving it hanging. 'But if one more 
is changed — that may shift the balance 
of power.' It doesn't fight. I don't 
think it ever fights. It must be a peace- 
able thing, in its own — inimitable — way. 
It never had to, because it always gained 
its end — otherwise." 

Van Wall's mouth twisted in a sickly 
grin. "You're suggesting then, that per- 
haps it already lias the greater numbers, 
but is just waiting — waiting, all of them 
— all of you, for all I know — waiting till 
I, the last human, drop my wariness in 
sleep. Mac, did you notice their eyes, 
all looking at us?" 

Garry sighed. "You haven't been sit- 
ting here for four straight hours, while 
all their eyes silently weighed the in- 
formation that one of us two, Copper 
or I, is a monster certainly — perhaps 
both of us." 

Clark repeated his request. "Will you 
stop that bird's noise? He's driving me 
nuts. Make him tone down, anyway." 

"Still praying?" McReady asked. 

"Still praying." Clark groaned. "He 
hasn't stopped for a second. I don't 
mind his praying if it relieves him, but 
he yells, he sings psalms and hymns 
and shouts prayers. He thinks God can't 
hear well way down here." 

"Maybe he can't," Barclay grunted. 
"Or he'd have done something about 
this thing loosed from hell." 

"Somebody's gomg to try that test 
you mentioned, if you don't stop him," 
Clark stated grimly. "I think a cleaver 
in the head would be as positive a test 
as a bullet in the heart." 

"Go ahead with the food. I'll see what 
I can do. There may be something in 
the cabinets." McReady moved wearily 
toward the corner Copper had used as 
his dispensary. Three tall cabinets of 



rough boards, two locked, were the re- 
positories of the camp's medical sup- 
plies. Twelve years ago McReady had 
graduated, had started for an interne- 
ship, and been diverted to meteorology. 
Copper was a picked man, a man who 
knew his profession thoroughly and 
modernly. More than half the drugs 
available were totally unfamiliar to Mc- 
Ready ; many of the others he had for- 
gotten. There was no huge medical 
library here, no series of journals avail- 
able to learn the things he had forgot- 
ten, the elementary, simple things to 
Copper, things that did not merit inclu- 
sion in the small library he had been 
forced to content himself with. Books 
are heavy, and every ounce of supplies 
had been freighted in by air. 

McReady picked a barbiturate hope- 
fully. Barclay and Van Wall went with 
him. One man never went anywhere 
alone in Big Magnet. 

Ralsen had his sledge put away, and 
the physicists had moved off the table, 
the poker game broken up when they 
got back. Clark was putting out the 
food. The click of spoons and the muf- 
fled sounds of eating were the only sign 
of life in the room. There were no 
words spoken as the three returned ; 
simply all eyes focused on them ques- 
tioningly, while the jaws moved me- 
thodically. 

McReady stiffened suddenly. Kinner 
was screeching out a hymn in a hoase, 
cracked voice. He looked wearily at 
Van Wall with a twisted grin and shook 
his head. "Hu-uh." 

VAN WALL cursed bitterly, and sat 
down at the table. "We'll just plumb 
have to take that till his voice wears out. 
He can't yell like that forever." 

"He's got a brass throat and a cast- 
iron larynx," Norris declared savagely. 
"Then we could be hopeful, and suggest 
he's one of our friends. In that case he 
could go on renewing his throat till 
doomsday." 



"WHO GOES THERE?" 



89 



Silence clamped down. For twenty 
minutes they ate without a word. Then 
Connant jumped up with an angry vio- 
lence. "You sit as still as a bunch of 
graven Jmages. You don't say a word, 
but oh, Lord, what expressive eyes 
you've got. They roll around like a 
bunch of glass marbles spilling down a 
table. They wink and blink and stare — 
and whisper things. Can you guys look 
somewhere else for a change, please ? 

"Listen, Mac, you're in charge here. 
Let's run movies for the rest of the night. 
We've been saving those reels to make 
'em last. Last for .what? Who is it's 
going to see those last reels, eh? Let's 
see 'em while we can, and look at some- 
thing other than each other." 

"Sound idea,, Connant. I, for one, am 
quite willing to change this in any way 
I can." 

"Turn the sound up loud, Dutton. 
Maybe you can drown out the hymns," 
Clark suggested. 

"But don't," Norris said softly, "don't 
turn off the lights altogether." 

"The lights will be out." McReady 
shook his head. "We'll show all the 
cartoon movies we have. You won't 
mind seeing the old cartoons will you?" 

"Goody, goody — a moom pitcher 
show. I'm just in the mood." Mc- 
Ready turned to look at the speaker, a 
lean, lanky New Englander, by the name 
of Caldwell. Caldwell was stuffing his 
pipe slowly, a sour eye cocked up to 
McReady. 

The bronze giant was forced to laugh. 
"O. K., Bart, you win. Maybe we aren't 
quite in the mood for Popeye and trick 
ducks, but it's something." 

"Let's play Classifications," Caldwell 
suggested slowly. "Or maybe you call 
it Guggenheim. You draw lines on a 
piece of paper, and put down classes of 
things — like animals, you know. One 
for 'H' and one for 'U' and so on. Like 
'Human' and 'unknown' for instance. 
I think that would be a hell of a lot bet- 
ter game. Classification, I sort of fig- 



ure, is what we need right now a lot 
more than movies. Maybe somebody's 
got a pencil that he can draw lines with, 
draw lines between the 'U' animals and 
the 'H' animals for instance." 

"McReady's trying to find that kind 
of a pencil," Van Wall answered qui- 
etly, "but we've got three kinds of ani- 
mals here, you know. One that begins 
with 'M'. We don't want any more." 

"Mad ones, you mean. Uh-hu. Clark, 
I'll help you with those pots so we can 
get our little peep-show going." Cald- 
well got up slowly. 

DUTTON and Barclay and Bcnning, 
in charge of the projector and sound 
mechanism arrangements, went about 
their job silently, while the Ad Build- 
ing was cleared and the dishes and pans 
disposed of. McReady drifted over to- 
ward Van Wall slowly, and leaned back 
in the bunk beside him. "I've been 
wondering, Van," he said with a wry 
grin, "whether or not to report my ideas 
in advance. I forgot the 'U animals' 
as Caldwell named it, could read minds. 
I've a vague idea of something that 
might work. It's too vague to bother 
with though. Go ahead with your show, 
while I try to figure out the logic of the 
thing. I'll take this bunk." 

Van Wall glanced up, and nodded. 
The movie screen would be practically 
on a line with this bunk, hence making 
the pictures least distracting here, be- 
cause least intelligible. "Perhaps you 
should tell us what you have in mind. 
As it is, only the unknowns know what 
you plan. You might be — unknown be- 
fore you got it into operation." 

"Won't take long, if I get it figured 
out right. But I don't want any more 
all-but-the-test-dog-monsters things. We 
better move Copper into this bunk di- 
rectly above me. He won't be watching 
the screen either." McReady nodded 
toward Copper's gently snoring bulk. 
Garry helped them lift and move the 
doctor. 



90 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



McReady leaned back against the 
bunk, and sank into a trance, almost, 
of concentration, trying to calculate 
chances, operations, methods. He was 
scarcely aware as the others distributed 
themselves silently, and the screen lit up. 
Vaguely Kinner's hectic, shouted pray- 
ers and his rasping hymn-singing an- 
noyed him till the sound accompaniment 
started. The lights were turned out, but 
the large, light-colored areas of the 
screen reflected enough light for ready 
visibility. It made men's eyes sparkle 
as they moved restlessly. Kinner was 
still praying, shouting, his voice a rau- 
cous accompaniment to the mechanical 
sound. Dutton stepped up the amplifi- 
cation. 

So long had the voice been going on, 
that only vaguely at first was McReady 
aware that something seemed missing. 
Lying as he was, just across the narrow 
room from the corridor leading to Cos- 
mos House, Kinner's voice had reached 
him fairly clearly, despite the sound ac- 
companiment of the pictures. It struck 
him abruptly that it had stopped. 

"Dutton, cut that sound," McReady 
called as he sat up abruptly. The pic- 
tures flickered a moment, soundless and 
strangely futile in the sudden, deep si- 
lence. The rising wind on the surface 
above bubbled melancholy tears of sound 
down the stove pipes. "Kinner's 
stopped," McReady said softly. 

"For God's sake start that sound 
then ; he may have stopped to listen," 
Norris snapped. 

McReady rose and went down the 
corridor. Barclay and Van Wall left 
their places at the far end of the room 
to follow him. The flickers bulged and 
twisted on the back of Barclay's gray 
underwear as he crossed the still-func- 
tioning beam of the projector. Dutton 
snapped on the lights, and the pictures 
vanished. 

Norris stood at the door as McReady 
had asked. Garry sat down quietly in 
the bunk nearest the door, forcing Clark 



to make room for him. Most of the 
others had stayed exactly where they 
were. Only Connant walked slowly up 
and down the room, in steady, unvary- 
ing rhythm. 

"If you're going to do that, Connant," 
Clark spat, "we can get along without 
you altogether, whether you're human 
or not. Will you stop that damned 
rhythm ?" 

"Sorry." The physicist sat down in 
a bunk, and watched his toes thought- 
fully. It was almost five minutes, five 
ages while the wind made the only sound, 
before McReady appeared at the door. 

"We," he announced, "haven't got 
enough grief here already. Somebody's 
tried to help us out. Kinner has a knife 
in his throat, which was why he stopped 
singing, probably. We've got monsters, 
madmen and murderers. Any more 
'MY you can think of, Caldwell? If 
there are, we'll probably have 'em before 
long." 

XI. 

"IS BLAIR loose?" someone asked. 

"Blair is not loose. Or he flew in. 
If there's any doubt about where out- 
gentle helper came from — this may clear 
it up." Van Wall held a foot-long, 
thin-bladed knife in a cloth. The wooden 
handle was half-burnt, charred with the 
peculiar pattern of the top of the gal- 
ley stove. 

Clark stared at it. "I did that this 
afternoon. I forgot the damn thing and 
left it on the stove." 

Van Wall nodded. "I smelled it, if 
you remember. I knew the knife came 
from the galley." 

"I wonder," said Benning looking 
around at the party warily, "how many 
more montsers have we? If somebody 
could slip out of his place, go back of 
the screen to the galley and then down 
to the Cosmos House and back — he did 
come bade didn't he ? Yes — everybody's 
here. Well, if one of the gang could do 
all that " 



"WHO GOES THERE? 



91 



"Maybe a monster did it," Garry sug- 
gested quietly. "There's that possibil- 
ity." 

"The monster, as you pointed out to- 
day, has only men left to imitate. Would 
he decrease bis — supply, shall we say?" 
Van Wall pointed out. "No, we just 
have a plain, ordinary louse, a murderer 
to deal with. Ordinarily we'd call him 
an 'inhuman murderer' I suppose, but 
we have to distinguish now. We have 
inhuman murderers, and now we have 
human murderers. Or one at least." 

"There's one less human," Norris said 
softly. "Maybe the monsters have the 
balance of power now." 

"Never mind that," McReady sighed 
and turned to Barclay. "Bar, will you 
get your electric gadget? I'm going to 
make certain " 

Barclay turned down the corridor to 
get the pronged electrocuter, while Mc- 
Ready and Van Wall went back toward 
Cosmos House. Barclay followed them 
in some thirty seconds. 

The corridor to Cosmos House 
twisted, as did nearly all corridors in 
Big Magnet, and Norris stood at the en- 
trance again. But they heard, rather 
muffled, McReady's sudden shout. 
There was a savage flurry of blows, dull 
ch-thunk, shluff sounds. "Bar — Bar 

" And a curious, savage mewing 

scream, silenced before even quick- mov- 
ing Norris had reached the bend. 

Kinner — or what had been Kinner — 
lay on the floor, cut half in two by the 
great knife McReady had had. The me- 
teorologist stood against the wall, the 
knife dripping red in his hand. Van 
Wall was stirring vaguely on the floor, 
moaning, his hand half-consciously rub- 
bing at his jaw"T Barclay, an unutter- 
ably savage gleam in his eyes, was 
methodically leaning on the pronged 
weapon in his hand, jabbing — jabbing, 
jabbing. 

Kinner's arms had developed a queer, 
scaly fur, and the flesh had twisted. 
The fingers had shortened, the hand 



rounded, the finger nails become three- 
inch long things of dull red horn, keened 
to steel-hard, razor-sharp talons. 

McReady raised his head, looked at 
the knife in his hand and dropped it. 
"Well, whoever did it can speak up 
now. He was an inhuman murderer at 
that — in that he murdered an inhuman. 
I swear by all that's holy, Kinner was 
a lifeless corpse on the floor here when 
we arrived. But when it found we were 
going to jab it with the power — It 
changed." 

NORRIS stared unsteadily. "Oh, 
Lord, those things can act. Ye gods — 
sitting in here for hours, mouthing 
prayers to a" God it hated! Shouting 
hymns in a cracked voice — hymns about 
a Church it never knew. Driving us 
mad with its ceaseless howling 

"Well. Speak up, whoever did it. 
You didn't know it, but you did the 
camp a favor. And I want to know how 
in blazes you got out of that room with- 
out anyone seeing you. It might help 
in guarding ourselves." 

"His screaming — his singing. Even 
the sound projector couldn't drown it." 
Clark shivered. "It was a monster." 

"Oh," said Van Wall in sudden com- 
prehension. "You were sitting right 
next to the door, weren't you? And 
almost behind the projection screen al- 
ready." 

Clark nodded dumbly. "He — it's 
quiet now. It's a dead — Mac, your 
test's no damn good. It was dead any- 
way, monster or man, it was dead." 

McReady chuckled softly. "Boys, 
meet Clark, the only one we know is 
human! Meet Clark, the one who 
proves he's human by trying to commit 
murder — and failing. Will the rest of 
you please refrain from trying to prove 
you're human for a while? I think we 
may have another test." 

"A test!" Connant snapped joyfully, 
then his face sagged in disappointment. 



92 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



"I suppose it's another eilher-way-you- 
waut-it." 

"No," said McReady steadily. "Look 
sliarp and be careful. Come into the 
Ad Building. Barclay, bring your clec- 
trocuter. And somebody — Dutton — 
stand with Barclay to make sure he does 
it. Watch every neighbor, for by the 
Hell these monsters came from, I've got 
something, and they know it. They're 
going to get dangerous!" 

The group tensed abruptly. An air 
of crushing menace entered into every 
man's body, sharply they looked at each 
other. More keenly than ever before — 
is that man next /o me an inhuman mon- 
ster? 

"What is it?" Garry asked, as they 
stood again in the main room. "How 
long will it take?" 

"I don't know, exactly," said Mc- 
Ready, his voice brittle with angry deter- 
mination. "But I know it will work, 
and no two ways about it. It depends 
on a basic quality of the monsters, not 
on us. 'Khmer' just convinced me." He 
stood heavy and solid in bronzed im- 
mobility, completely sure of himself 
again at last. 

"This," said Barclay hefting the 
wooden-handled weapon, tipped with its 
two sharp-pointed, charged conductors, 
"is going to be rather necessary, I take 
it. Is the power plant assured?" 

Dutton nodded sharply. "The auto- 
matic stoker bin is full. The gas power 
plant is on stand-by. Van Wall and I 
set it for the movie operation and — 
we've checked it over rather carefully 
several times, you know. Anything 
those wires touch, dies," he assured 
them grimly. "I know that." 

Dr. Copper stirred vaguely in his 
bunk, rubbed his eyes with fumbling 
hand. He sat up slowly, blinked his 
eyes blurred with sleep and drugs, wid- 
ened with an unutterable horror of 
drug-ridden nightmares. "Garry," he 
mumbled, "Garry — listen. Selfish — from 
hell they came, and hellish shellfish — I 



mean self Do I? What do I 

mean ?" He sank back in his bunk, and 
snored softly. 

McREADY looked at him thought- 
fully. "We'll know presently," he nod- 
ded slowly. "But selfish is what you 
mean, all right. You may have thought 
of that, half-sleeping, dreaming there. I 
didn't stop to think what dreams you 
might be having. But that's all right. 
Selfish is the word. They must be, you 
see." He turned to the men in the 
cabin, tense, silent men staring with 
wolfish eyes each at his neighbor. "Self- 
ish, and as Dr. Copper said — every part 
is a whole. Every piece is self-sufficient, 
an animal in itself. 

"That, and one other thing, tell the 
story. There's nothing mysterious about 
blood; it's just as normal a body tissue 
as a piece of muscle, or a piece of liver. 
But it hasn't so much connective tissue, 
though it has millions, billions of life- 
cells." 

McReady's great bronze beard ruffled 
in a grim smile. "This is satisfying, in 
a way. I'm pretty sure we humans still 
outnumber you — others. Others stand- 
ing here. And we have what you, your 
other-world race, evidently doesn't. Not 
an imitated, but a bred-in-the-bone in- 
stinct, a driving, unquenchable fire that's 
genuine. We'll fight, fight with a fe- 
rocity you may attempt to imitate, but 
you'll never equal! We're human. 
We're real. You're imitations, false to 
the core of your every cell." 

"All right. It's a showdown now. 
You know. You. with your mind read- 
ing. You've lifted the idea from my 
brain. You can't do a thing about it. 

"Standing here 

"Let it pass. Blood is tissue. They 
have to bleed, if they don't bleed when 
cut, then by Heaven, they're phony! 
Phony from hell! If they bleed— then 
that blood, separated from them, is an 
individual — a newly jormed individual 
in its own right, just as they, split, all 



"WHO GOES THERE?" 



93 



o] them, from one original, are individ- 
uals! 

"Get it, Van? See the answer, Bar?" 

Van Wall laughed very softly. "The 
blood — the blood will not obey. It's a 
new individual, with all the desire to 
protect its own life that the original — 
the main mass from which it was split 
— has. The blood will live — and try to 
crawl away from a hot needle, say!" 

McReady picked up the scalpel from 
the table. From the cabinet, he took a 
rack of test-tubes, a tiny alcohol lamp, 
and a length of platinum wire set in a 
little glass rod. A smile of grim satis- 
faction rode his lips. For a moment he 
glanced up at those around him. Bar- 
clay and Dutton moved toward him 
slowly, the wooden-handled electric in- 
strument alert. 

"Dutton," said McReady, "suppose 
you stand over by the splice there where 
you've connected that in. Just make 
sure no — thing pulls it loose." 

Dutton moved away. "Now, Van, 
suppose you be first on this." 

White-faced, Van Wall stepped for- 
ward. With a delicate precision, Mc- 
Ready cut a vein in the base of his 
thumb. Van Wall winced slightly, then 
held steady as a half inch of bright blood 
collected in the tube. McReady put the 
tube in the rack, gave Van Wall a bit 
of alum, and indicated the iodine bottle. 

Van Wall stood motionlessly watch- 
ing. McReady heated the platinum wire 
in the alcohol lamp flame, then dipped 
it into the tube. It hissed softly. Five 
times he repeated the test. "Human, 
I'd say." McReady sighed, and straight- 
ened. "As yet, my theory hasn't been 
actually proven — but I have hopes. I 
have hopes. 

"Don't, by the way, get too interested 
in this. We have with us some unwel- 
come ones, no doubt. Van, will you re- 
lieve Barclay at the switch? Thanks. 
O. K., Barclay, and may I say I hope 
you stay with us? You're a damned 
good guy." 



Barclay grinned uncertainly ; winced 
under the keen edge of the scalpel. Pres- 
ently, smiling widely, he retrieved his 
long-handled weapon. 

"Mr. Samuel Dutt— Bar!' 

THE TENSITY was released in that 
second. Whatever of hell the monsters 
may have had within them, the men in 
that instant matched it. Barclay had no 
chance to move his weapon as a score 
of men poured down on the thing that 
had seemed Dutton. It mewed, and 
spat, and tried to grow fangs — and was 
a hundred broken, torn pieces. With- 
out knives, or any weapon save the 
brute-given strength of a staff of picked 
men, the thing was crushed, rent. 

Slowly they picked themselves up, 
their eyes smouldering, very quiet in 
their motions. A curious wrinkling of 
their lips betrayed a species of nervous- 
ness. 

Barclay went over with the electric 
weapon. Things smouldered and stank. 
The caustic acid Van Wall dropped on 
each spilled drop of blood gave off tick- 
ling, cough-provoking fumes. 

McReady grinned, his deep-set eyes 
alight and dancing. "Maybe," he said 
softly, "I underrated man's abilities when 
I said nothing human could have the 
ferocity in the eyes of that thing we 
found. I wish we could have the oppor- 
tunity to treat in a more befitting man- 
ner these things. Something with boil- 
ing oil, or melted lead in it, or maybe 
slow roasting in the power boiler. When 
I think what a man Dutton was 

"Never mind. My theory is confirmed 
1 )y — by one who knew ? Well, Van Wall 
and Barclay are proven. I think, then, 
that I'll try to show you what I already 
know. That I too, am human." Mc- 
Ready swished the scalpel in absolute 
alcohol, burned it off the metal blade, 
and cut the base of his thumb expertly. 

Twenty seconds later he looked up 
from the desk at the waiting men. There 
were more grins out there now, friendly 



94 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



grins, yet withal, something else in the 
eyes. 

"Connant," McReady laughed softly, 
"was right. The huskies watching that 
thing in the corridor bend had nothing 
on you. Wonder why we think only 
the wolf blood has the right to ferocity? 
Maybe on spontaneous viciousness a 
wolf takes tops, but after these seven 
days — abandon all hope, ye wolves who 
enter here! 

"Maybe we can save time. Connant, 
would you step for " 

Again Barclay was too slow. There 
were more grins, less tensity still, when 
Barclay and Van Wall finished their 
work. 

Garry spoke in a low, bitter voice. 
"Connant was one of the finest men we 
had here — and five minutes ago I'd have 
sworn he was a man. Those damnable 
things are more than imitation." Garry 
shuddered and sat back in his bunk. 

And thirty seconds later, Garry's 
blood shrank from the hot platinum 
wire, and struggled to escape the tube, 
struggled as frantically as a suddenly 
feral, red-eyed, dissolving imitation of 
Garry struggled to dodge the snake- 
tongue weapon Barclay advanced at him, 
white-faced and sweating. The Thing 
in the test-tube screamed with a tiny, 
tinny voice as McReady dropped it into 
the glowing coal of the galley stove. 

XII. 

"THE LAST OF IT ?" Dr. Copper 
looked down from his bunk with blood- 
shot, saddened eyes. "Fourteen of 
them " 

McReady nodded shortly. "In some 
ways — if only we could have perma- 
nently prevented their spreading — I'd 
like to have even the imitations back. 
Commander Garry — Connant — Dutton 
—Clark " 

"Where are they taking those things?" 
Copper nodded to the stretcher Barclay 
and Norris were carrying out. 



"Outside. Outside on the ice, where 
they've got fifteen smashed crates, half 
a ton of coal, and presently will add 10 
gallons of kerosene. We've dumped 
acid on every spilled drop, every torn 
fragment. We're going to incinerate 
those." 

"Sounds like a_ good plan." Copper 
nodded wearily. "I wonder, you haven't 
said whether Blair " 

McReady started. "We forgot him! 
We had so much else! I wonder — do 
you suppose we can cure him now?" 

"If " began Dr. Copper, and 

stopped meaningly. 

McReady started a second time. 
"Even a madman. It imitated Kinner 
and his praying hysteria " Mc- 
Ready turned toward Van Wall at "the 
long table. "Van, we've got to make an 
expedition to Blair's shack." 

Van looked up sharply, the frown of 
worry faded for an instant in surprised 
remembrance. Then he rose, nodded. 
"Barclay better go along. He applied 
the lashings, and may figure how to get 
in without frightening Blair too much." 

Three quarters of an hour, through 
— 37° cold, while the Aurora curtain 
bellied overhead. The twilight was 
nearly 12 hours long, flaming in the 
north on snow like white, crystalline 
sand under their skis. A 5-mile wind 
piled it in drift-lines pointing off to the 
northwest. Three quarters of an hour 
to reach the snow-buried shack. No 
smoke came from the little shack, and 
the men hastened. 

"Blair!" Barclay roared into the wind 
when he was still a hundred yards away. 
"Blair!" 

"Shut up," said McReady softly. 
"And hurry. He may be trying a lone 
hike. If we have to go after him — no 
planes, the tractors disabled " 

"Would a monster have the stamina 
a man has?" 

"A broken leg wouldn't stop it for 
more than a minute," McReady pointed 
out. 



"WHO GOES THERE? 



BARCLAY gasped suddenly and 
pointed aloft. Dim in the twilit sky, a 
winged thing circled in curves of in- 
describable grace and ease. Great white 
wings tipped gently, and the bird swept 
over them in silent curiosity. "Alba- 
tross " Barclay said softly. "First 

of the season, and wandering way in- 
land for some reason. If a monster's 

loose " 

Norris bent down on the ice, and tore 
hurriedly at his heavy, windproof cloth- 
ing. He straightened, his coat flapping 
open, a grim blue-metaled weapon in 
his hand. It roared a challenge to the 
white silence of Antarctica. 

The thing in the air screamed hoarsely. 
Its great wings worked frantically as a 
dozen feathers floated down from its 
tail. Norris fired again. The bird was 
moving swiftly now, but in an almost 
straight line of retreat. It screamed 
again, more feathers dropped and with 
beating wings it soared behind a ridge 
of pressure ice, to vanish. 

Norris hurried after the others. "It 
won't come back," he panted. 

Barclay cautioned him to silence, 
pointing. A curiously, fiercely blue light 
beat out from the cracks of the shack's 
door. A very low, soft humming 
sounded inside, a low, soft humming and 
a clink and click of tools, the very 
sounds somehow bearing a message of 
frantic haste. 

McReady's face paled. "Lord help us 

if that thing has " He grabbed 

Barclay's shoulder, and made snipping 
motions with his fingers, pointing to- 
ward the lacing of control-cables that 
held the door. 

Barclay drew the wire-cutters from 
his pocket, and kneeled soundlessly at 
the door. The snap and twang of cut 
wires made an unbearable racket in the 
utter quiet of the Antarctic hush. There 
was only that strange, sweetly soft hum 
from within the shack, and the queerly, 
hecticly clipped clicking and rattling of 
tools to drown their noises. 



9$ 

McReady peered through a crack in 
the door. His breath sucked in huskily 
aud his great fingers clamped cruelly on 
Barclay's shoulder. The meteorologist 
backed down. "It isn't," he explained 
very softly, "Blair. It's kneeling on 
something on the bunk — something *hat 
keeps lifting. Whatever it's wording 
on is a thing like a knapsack — and it 
lifts." 

"All at once," Barclay said grimly. 
"No. Norris, hang back, and get that 
iron of yours out. It may have — 
weapons." 

Together, Barclay's powerful body 
and McReady's giant strength struck the 
door. Inside, the bunk jammed against 
the door screeched madly and crackled 
into kindling. The door flung down 
from broken hinges, the patched lumber 
of the doorpost dropping inward. 

Like a blue-rubber ball, a Thing 
bounced up. One of its four tentaclelike 
arms looped out like a striking snake. 
In a seven-tentacled hand a six-inch pen- 
cil of winking, shining metal glinted and 
swung upward to face them. Its line- 
thin lips twitched back from snake-fangs 
in a grin of hate, red eyes blazing. 

Norris' revolver thundered in the con- 
fined space. The hatc-washed face 
twitched in agony, the looping tentacle 
snatched back. The silvery thing in its 
hand a smashed ruin of metal, the seven- 
tentacled hand became a mass of man- 
gled flesh oozing greenish-yellow ichor. 
The revolver thundered three times 
more. Dark holes drilled each of the 
three eyes before Norris hurled the 
empty weapon against its face. 

THE THING screamed in feral hate, 
a lashing tentacle wiping at blinded eyes. 
For a moment it crawled on the floor, 
savage tentacles lashing out, the body 
twitching. Then it staggered up again, 
blinded eyes working, boiling hideously, 
the crushed flesh sloughing away in sod- 
den gobbets. 

Barclay lurched to his feet and dove 



95 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



forward with an ice-ax. The flat of the 
weighty thing crushed against the side 
of the head. Again the unkillable mon- 
ster went down. The tentacles lashed 
out. and suddenly Barclay fell to his feet 
in the grip of a living, livid rope. The 
thing dissolved as he held it, a white- 
hot hand that ate into the flesh of his 
hands like living fire. Frantically he 
tore the stuff from him, held his hands 
where they could not be reached. The 
blind Thing felt and ripped at the tough, 
heavy, wind-proof cloth, seeking flesh — 
flesh it could convert 

The huge blow-torch McReady had 
brought coughed solemnly. Abruptly it 
rumbled disapproval throatily. Then it 
laughed gurglingly, and thrust out a 
blue-white, three-foot tongue. The 
Thing on the floor shrieked, flailed out 
blindly with tentacles that writhed and 
withered in the bubbling wrath of the 
blow-torch. It crawled and turned on 
the floor, it shrieked and hobbled madly, 
but always McReady held the blow- 
torch on the face, the dead eyes burn- 
ing and bubbling uselessly. Frantically 
the Thing crawled and howled. 

A tentacle sprouted a savage talon — 
and crisped in the flame. Steadily Mc- 
Ready moved with a planned, grim cam- 
paign. Helpless, maddened, the Thing 
retreated from the grunting torch, the 
caressing, licking tongue. For a mo- 
ment it rebelled, squalling in inhuman 
1 '.at red at the touch of the icy snow. 
Then it fell back before the charring 
breath of the torch, the stench of its 
flesh bathing it. Hopelessly it retreated 
— on and on across the antarctic snow. 
The bitter wind swept over it. twisting 
the torch-tongue ; vainly it flopped, a 
trail Of oily, stinking smoke bubbling 
away from it 

McReady walked back toward the 
shack silently. Barclay met him at the 
door. "No more?" the giant meteorolo- 
gist asked grimly. 

Barclay shook his head. "No more. 
It didn't split?" 



"It had other things to think abput," 
McReady assured him. "When I left 
it, it was a glowing coal. What was it 
doing ?" 

Norris laughed shortly. "Wise boys, 
we are. Smash magnetos, so planes 
won't work. Rip the boiler tubing out 
of the tractors. And leave that Thing 
alone for a week in this shack. Alone 
and undisturbed." 

McReady looked in at the shack more 
carefully. The air, despite the ripped 
door, was hot and humid. On a table 
at the far end of the room rested a thing 
of coiled wires and small magnets, glass 
tubing and radio tubes. At the center 
a block ©f rough stone rested. From 
the center of the block came the light 
that flooded the place, the fiercely blue 
light bluer than the glare of an electric 
arc, and from it came the sweetly soft 
hum. Off to one side was another 
mechanism of crystal glass, blown with 
an incredible neatness and delicacy, 
metal plates and a queer, shimmery 
sphere of insubstantiality. 

"What is that?" McReady moved 
nearer. 

NORRIS grunted. "Leave it for in- 
vestigation. But I can guess pretty well. 
That's atomic power. That stuff to the 
left — that's a neat little thing for doing 
what men have been trying to do with 
100-ton cyclotrons and so forth. It sep- 
arates neutrons from heavy water, which 
he was getting from the surrounding 
ice." 

"Where did he get all— oh. Of 
course. A monster couldn't be locked 
in — or out. He's been through the ap- 
paratus caches." McReady stared at the 
apparatus. "Lord, what minds that race 
must have " 

"The shimmery sphere — I think it's a 
sphere of pure force. Neutrons can pass 
through any matter, and he wanted a 
supply reservoir of neutrons. Just pro- 
ject neutrons against silica — calcium — 



"WHO GOES THERE?" 



97 



beryllium — almost anything, and the 
atomic energy is released. That thing 
is the atomic generator." 

McReady plucked a thermometer from 
his coat. "It's 120° in here, despite the 
open door. Our clothes have kept the 
heat out to an extent, but I'm sweating 
now." 

Norris nodded. "The light's cold. I 
found that. But it gives off heat to 
warm the place through that coil. He 
had all the power in the world. He 
could keep it warm and pleasant, as his 
race thought of warmth and pleasant- 
ness. Did you notice the light, the color 
of it?" 

McReady nodded. "Beyond the stars 
is the answer. From beyond the stars. 
From a hotter planet that circled a 
brighter, bluer sun they came." 

McReady glanced out the door toward 



through the ceiling's wood without 
scorching it. Barclay walked over to it, 
grasped two of the dangling straps in 
his hands, and pulled it down with an 
effort. He strapped it about his body. 
A slight jump carried him in a weirdly 
slow arc across the room. 

"Anti-gravity," said McReady softly. 

"Anti-gravity," Norris nodded. "Yes, 
we had 'em stopped, with no planes, and 
no birds. The birds hadn't come — but 
they had coffee-tins and radio parts, and 
glass and the machine shop at night. 
And a week — a whole week — all to it- 
self. America in a single jump — with 
anti-gravity powered by the atomic en- 
ergy of matter. 

"We had 'em stopped. Another half 
hour — it was just tightening these straps 
on the device so it could wear it — and 
we'd have stayed in Antarctica, and shot 




the blasted, smoke-stained trail that 
flopped and wandered blindly off across 
the drift. "There won't be any more 
coming, I guess. Sheer accident it 
landed here, and that was twenty mil- 
lion years ago. What did it do all that 
for?" He nodded toward the apparatus. 

Barclay laughed softly. "Did you no- 
tice what it was working on when we 
came? Look." He pointed toward the 
ceiling of the shack. 

Like a knapsack made of flattened 
coffee-tins, with dangling cloth straps 
and leather belts, the mechanism clung 
to the ceiling. A tiny, glaring heart of 
supernal flame burned in it, yet burned 



down any moving thing that came from 
the rest of the world." 

"The albatross " McReady said 

softly. "Do you suppose " 

"With this thing almost finished ? 
With that death weapon it held in its 
hand? 

"No, by the grace of God, who evi- 
dently does hear very well, even down 
here, and the margin of half an hour, 
we keep our world, and the planets of 
the system too. Anti-gravity, you know, 
and atomic power. Because They came 
from another sun, a star beyond the 
stars. They came from a world with a 
bluer sun. 






■ : <i 






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The Terrible Sense 

by 

Calvin Peregoy 




Not sight nor touch nor hearing — nor any human 
sense — yet through it he learned the terror and the 

tyranny of Sound. 



AMAZING," said Dr. Bolts to 
l\ himself. He removed the ear 
-L cups from Mr. Theodore Clews 
and hooked the audiometer to the center 
of his forehead and the base of his skull. 
He threw on 110 decibels, the equiva- 

AST— 7 



lent of 100,000,000,000 units of relative 
sound energy or a well-developed thun- 
der clap. 

Mr. Clews had been sitting in the 
timid concentration of his habitual 
wormlike psychology of life. Had he 



100 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



known his otologieal tests had long since 
passed the relatively low points equiva- 
lent to a pneumatic drill or elevated 
train running through his ear, he would 
probably have died of horror. 

As it was, he simply vibrated to the 
thunderous oscillations of 110 decibels. 
Not even his inner ear responded. He 
felt a decided and painful tremor in his 
foot, but it did not occur to him it had 
anything to do with sound. He shook 
his head negatively. 

Dr. Botts switclied off the current and 
removed the wires. He wrote on a piece 
of paper, "I am afraid you are deaf." 
Mentally he noted that some superior 
term was needed to convey an expres- 
sion of Mr. Clews' conditions. 

Mr. Theodore Clews' cup of woe 
flowed over. It was not bad enough 
that nobody had ever called him Ted; 
that he had been forced to wear long 
curls to the age of 12; that his mother 
had still taken all but two dollars of his 
pay at 25; that fourteen younger, less 
experienced and less efficient bookkeep- 
ers had been advanced over him; and 
that he was less than dust to his tyran- 
nous wife.' Now, suddenly, he was 
stone deaf. He broke down and wept. 

Dr. Botts caught himself ready to 
make tests of the ultrashort-wave radia- 
tions of a mortal afflicted with stagger- 
m S grief- He reminded himself this was 
a client and withstrained his curiosity 
with effort. It was a truly amazing case 
— the first case of absolute utter deafness 
the doctor had ever witnessed. 

The doctor was not beset by tradi- 
tional ethics and conscience. With fore- 
finger and thumb he held his lips to- 
gether a moment. No use thinking of 
reconstructing Mr. Clews' ordinary 
hearing apparatus. It was defunct for- 
ever. 

But something might be done with 
his nervous system. Something along 
the order of a bat's aural system. Of 
course, it would require the correlating 



system of a bat's real ear also, but that 
might be taken from a bat itself. 

The doctor examined his fingers with 
sudden interest. Why not? Why not 
duplicate in the timid Theodore Clews 
the entire audio-nervous system of a bat ? 
The doctor restrained a strong morbid 
impulse to make it a vampire bat. He 
dropped a small tablet in a glass of cold 
water and gave it to the distraught 
Theodore Clews. Then he went to se- 
lect the most sensitive bat in his sterile 
menagerie. 

A MONTH LATER, Mr. Theodore 
Clews timidly and thankfully shook 
hands with Dr. Botts and left his sana- 
torium. The delicate operation had been 
a success. Already, he could hear better 
than ever before. It was a strange type 
of hearing which had given him moments 
of uneasy thought during the past few 
days, but it was hearing. 

"It will take several months for the 
new system to become completely syn- 
chronized with your motor nervous 
system," the doctor announced. 

Mr. Clews went timidly back to his 
five-room flat and the stored-up tyranny 
of his wife. Except that her loud ac- 
cusations had become more strident, his 
life did not seem to have changed. The 
only ill effect of the operation was that 
he had become more nervous. The clat- 
ter of adding machines in the office be- 
gan to drive him into frenzy. The 
scratch of his pen reached such a pitch 
that he had to change to a snub-nosed 
stub. 

Three months had passed before Mrs. 
Clews ran out of immediate faults to 
find with her husband. With tight jaws 
she was considering a mythical million- 
aire she might have married — if she had 
ever known a millionaire — when a tense 
expression on the face of her husband 
attracted her attention. His eyes were 
bright and his gaze was riveted on the 
cat. 



THE TERRIBLE SENSE 



"Well that's a fine one for her that 
was the daughter of a police captain to 
have for a husband !" she commented 
scathingly. "Scared of a cat ! Don't 
say a word, Theodore Clews, it's written 
on your face as clear as day!" 

Mr. Clews jumped and colored. He 
tried to crouch less conspicuously in a 
corner of the chair. But inevitably his 
gaze returned to the cat and he subcon- 
sciously moved forward to the edge of 
his seat. But oddly, he was not looking 
at the cat when it silently yawned and 
shifted. Yet Theodore Clews knew what 
the cat had done as if a photograph had 
been flashed in his mind. 

He heard it! He even heard the cat's 
toes go back together ! 

The cat started to lick itself, stopped, 
its head swinging toward corners of the 
room. Intently it gazed with its fiery 
eyes, rolling onto haunches ready to 
spring. Suddenly it looked at Mr. 
Clews. A second it glared. Then it 
hissed, leaped in a somersault and 
rushed from the room. 

For minutes, Mr. Clews' heart 
thumped like a sledge hammer. That 
savage glare of the cat had put his heart 
into his throat. But it occurred to him 
the cat had been equally as afraid of 
something about him. He could not 
figure what. Like his wife, the cat had 
been wont either to disdain him alto- 
gether, or else accept him very conde- 
scendingly. 

The cat's fear slowly filled Mr. Clews 
with a sense of well being. Nothing 
before had ever been afraid of him. Now 
he had impressed his importance as a 
man — well, at least upon the cat. He 
went to bed well pleased with life. 

He had forgotten to open the window 
which faced a dark court. The room 
was cluttered with tables, chairs, trunks 
and boxes, but he made his way to the 
window in the dark without touching a 
thing. Theodore Clews was not very 
observant or he would have been sur- 



prised that he knew where every object 
was. He could not have explained, but 
he could have told that the big bureau 
was precisely seven feet two inches from 
the very spot where he stepped into bed. 

NOISES began to become a very im- 
portant part of Mr. Clews' life. The 
noise of adding machines and typewrit- 
ers had first annoyed him. Now they 
frightened him, so that he would pause 
at the bottom of a row of figures and 
have to grip the desk with sudden trem- 
bling. He eyed the quiet, sound-proofed 
office of the chief bookkeeper, who had 
been advanced over him, with envy and 
jealousy. It was the first time he had 
ever been truly jealous of another man's 
success. 

The riotous noise of rushing crowds 
at closing time drove Mr. Clews near 
hysteria. He began staying late, finishing 
up odds and ends of work he had never 
paid much attention to. There was a 
highly difficult piece of accounting to be 
done which had to be done on outside 
time. Clews' chief noticed his penchant 
for working late. 

"What do you think about Clews do- 
ing it ?" he asked the big boss. 

The big boss chuckled. "Just the 
man! He's too scared to even think 
what's behind figures!" 

It was dark when Clews would leave, 
and to avoid the noise he took to walk- 
ing home through the less used and 
darker back streets. It did not occur to 
him, but he seldom used his eyes to see 
where he was going. He simply knew 
when he came to alleys and crossings — 
where lamp-posts and people were — 
without looking. 

At home, the cat began to grow thin. 
At night it slunk onto the fire-escape 
with swift backward glances at Clews. 
But not all cats were as frightened. A 
loughy in the dock district had waited 
and silently stalked him many nights. 
Each night it crept a little closer behind 
him for a block. 



102 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-MOTION 



One night it began to gallop on silent 
feet. Clews was thinking of that special 
job he was doing when he suddenly felt 
alarm and leaped straight up. The cat 
sailed beneath him with open mouth and 
unsheathed claws. 

Clews started to run without thinking. 
Suddenly he remembered the fear their 
own cat had of him. He whirled. Along 
the dark pavement the cat was galloping 
in a low crouch. He could not see it 
clearly, could barely define movement in 
the shadow. The cat tensed and leaped 
in attack. At the same second, Clews 
leaped aside. Without thinking, he 
reached out and caught the cat by the 
tail. Before he realized what he had 
done, he had dashed its brains out. 

His act appalled him and made him 
slightly sick. Then he began to enjoy 
the sensation of victory. By the time he 
arrived home he was glad he had killed 
the cat. When he thought of it again at 
dinner, he licked his lips a little. 

Daily, the poise at the office was be- 
coming more deafening to his system. 
He began to hate the noise and the peo- 
ple responsible for it. His fear turned 
to anger. Particularly was it focused 
on the man who had that quiet, sound- 
proofed office, his immediate chief. 

He did not notice it, but he no longer 
turned to see who was approaching. He 
knew long before he was fully conscious 
of their footsteps or voices. He was sit- 
ting on one side of a partition with Will 
Flanagan at noon one day when Will 
said idly, "I wonder exactly what Marie 
Stevens is doing at one minute to 
twelve ?" 

• "Combing her hair," Theodore said. 
He was not guessing. She might just 
as well have been powdering or rouging. 
But he knew she was combing her hair. 

Will looked around the partition and 
said, "Jeepers!" He gave Clews a pe- 
culiar look. 

The other bookkeepers began making 
a lot of remarks like that to Clews. As 



long as they asked about somebody in 
the room, or standing in a draft blowing 
into the room, Clews usually knew the 
answer. A week later they framed him. 
They had Marie Stevens sit absolutely 
quiet behind a filing case. They led up 
to the idea and asked Clews. 

Clews' mind went blank with concen- 
tration. He had not discovered how he 
knew things yet. He had not even dis- 
covered he was being kidded. After a 
second he said seriously, "She's trying 
to be quiet. But she's chewing gum." 

The committee ran to investigate. She 
was. They did not notice that the effort 
of absolute control made her breathe a 
little harder. 

THEY BEGAN to dodge Clews' eyes 
after that, and to avoid being close to 
him. But he did not notice their new 
attitude. He was busy with the special 
work. Free minutes were filled with 
increasing rage at the noise around him, 
and jealousy of the man with that quiet 
office. Suddenly it occurred to Clews 
to get that man's job. It was simply an 
idea intention. He had never tried to 
get another man's job before. 

Summer came on, and Clews donned 
thin clothing. On hot days when he sat 
in the office in shirt sleeves, the noise 
was deafening. When he stretched his 
arms to cool the perspiration the noise 
made him shiver. 

He was stretching when he suddenly 
heard his boss talking. It surprised him, 
for his boss was nowhere in the room. 
He put his elbows on his desk and the 
sound ceased. Later he stretched again 
and again he heard his boss. He stood 
up, holding his arms out and turning 
subconsciously. He dropped one arm 
at an angle. He heard the voice as if it 
were next to him. 

Clews turned white with the dis- 
covery, but he listened. It was some- 
thing about that special job he was doing 
after hours. The other, lower voice was 
the big boss. Beads of perspiration 



J 



THE TERRIBLE SENSE 



103 



popped out on timid Clews' forehead. 
That job was the private account of the 
firm — the account the government did 
not see. When he sat down to think 
over this awful discovery, the voices 
stopped. A mosquito floated through 
the air. Without thinking, Clews 
reached out and grabbed it in flight. 

His wife was in a particular temper 
that night. She railed for an hour. 
Clews thought the racket of her voice 
would drive him mad. "Well," she 
finally screeched, "can't you answer?" 
Her voice hit a highly unpleasant note. 
It rasped across Clews' nerves like a 
file. 

He looked up at her, his eyes going 
red with rage. Before he knew what he 
had done, he had knocked her down. 
She stood gaping with surprise while he 
grabbed up his coat and went out. 

Clews walked along a dark street deep 
in thought. He was surprised that he 
was not more shocked at his own action. 
Somehow, it had seemed the thing to 
do. She'd have to stop using those 
strident notes unless she wanted him to 
walk out. 

The night was filled with a world of 
sound-pictures. He knew that four peo- 
ple walked out of a house a block distant 
and turned toward the waterfront. He 
heard radios, but that was expected. 
But he knew that somebody on either the 
third or fourth floor rear of the house 
across the street turned on their water 
faucet. He tilted his head to one side. 
Without thinking, one of his arms and 
legs lifted and moved slowly about. 
Suddenly he knew the person using that 
water was a woman. It had a different 
sound hitting on masculine flesh and 
muscle. 

When he put his leg down, he knew 
that a night shift was using picks on the 
new subway far beneath. He felt the 
rumble of a truck, and then another simi- 
lar rumble. But he knew that one truck 
was running west, three streets north, 
and that the other one was in the ex- 



cavation underfoot. There was a ter- 
rible din northward, but out of it he 
picked the bell of a fire engine. That 
would be about a mile and a half away, 
he thought. 

HE WAS THIRSTY and passed a 
little restaurant. Out behind was a quiet 
summer garden with soft lights. He 
went out and sat down. The waiter 
came up and stood behind his line of 
vision, but he knew the waiter was six 
feet tall, and knew the length of his 
arms. 

He ordered a lemonade made of fresh- 
cut lemons. The waiter disappeared and 
Clews absently stretched a leg and 
rested his arm over another chair. He 
did not notice his arm jumping nerv- 
ously. 

The waiter brought a lemonade and 
Clews said, "That's not fresh lemons. 
I want lemons cut and squeezed special." 

The waiter said, "That's what I gave 
you, sir." 

Clews looked at him and said, "You 
had this squeezed in a pitcher in the 
icebox. You put the ice in the glass 
before you poured the lemon juice." 

The waiter swallowed, gawked, 
blanched and took the lemonade back. 
Clews was momentarily frightened at 
what he had said. How did he know 
that? The kitchen was back in the 
house. But he knew it! He got over 
his fright and began to feel proud of his 
knowledge. Why should he be scared ? 
He could scare other people ! 

A man and a woman came in and sat 
at a distant table. Clews knew the man 
was his big boss without looking. The 
woman laughed, and Clews felt pretty 
certain she was not the boss' wife. He 
readjusted his position without thinking 
and heard the murmured conversation 
distinctly. No, it was not the wife. 

After a few drinks the woman 
laughed more and louder. There was 
an irritating quality to her voice and 



104 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



Clews moved to the inside bar without 
looking at them. He sat with his feet 
on the upper rung of the high stool and 
his arms doubled closely against the 
sides of his chest. It was better this 
way. He did not hear that grating 
laugh. 

The woman passed behind him and he 
heard his boss come up. The boss 
laughed and ordered drinks. 

"Didn't realize you were a drinking 
man, Clews ! Well, a long one doesn't 
do any harm in this heat, eh?" 

Clews ordered another lemonade. He 
didn't like the sound of the boss' voice. 
It held an unconvincing tone of smooth- 
ness. It annoyed him and it made him 
think of the office and that private job 
for which he wasn't paid a dime extra. 

The boss took half his drink and said, 
"By the way, this little meeting will just 
be between us two ?" There was a threat 
in the tone. It made Clews angry. 

Clews said, "I should have had Dice's 
job. I was senior and I know more 
about the work." 

The boss colored. "That's rather 
high-handed, Clews !" 

"So are those private books," Clews 
said. He looked at the boss for the first 
tune. When he raised his arm to drink 
he knew that the boss was scared. Clews 
could hear his heart pounding. 

"We'll see what we can do tomorrow," 
the boss said. 

The next week Clews was put in 
charge of his department. He got the 
sound-proofed room. He breathed with 
relief. He wasn't frightened and angered 
by noise all the time in there ! And — 
the work of the department picked up 
immediately. The clerks kept their eyes 
on Clews when he came through, and a 
few of them said silent prayers. It was 
uncanny that he could tell them at the 
end of the day that they had been read- 
ing a book or writing a letter instead of 
working on figures when he had been 
clean across the room ! 



THERE WAS a lot that was un- 
canny about Clews lately, they whis- 
pered. For one thing, he didn't pay any 
attention to where he was going, yet he 
never hit anything. Then there was the 
way he acted. Sometimes when he was 
listening his arm or leg would go out 
and vibrate like a throbbing pipe. And 
he heard every word they said no mat- 
ter how quietly they whispered ! 

When fall came, Clews grew more 
nervous than ever. The streets were 
full of traffic noise during the daytime. 
It actually pained him at times. And he 
was developing a fondness for night 
roaming which left him tired and groggy 
the next day. He was nervous, too, at 
his increasing knowledge of an unpleas- 
ant kind. A laugh, a word, a swift mo- 
tion, and he would size people up. How, 
he had no idea. But he would know 
they were shallow, scheming, disloyal, 
dishonest. 

It was startling the number of people 
who weren't what they seemed. Down 
at the office they all smiled pleasantly at 
him, but they hated him. They were 
frightened of him. He knew that from 
the noise their motions made as he 
passed by them. Sometimes he would 
have his foot out in the hall and hear 
what they were whispering about him. 

He was shocked by the crookedness of 
the firm he worked for, too. He did 
not yet have the courage of his con- 
victions or he would have reported them. 
He had learned too much — more than 
he wanted to know. As on the day he 
had his hand on the wall of the presi- 
dent's office and heard the conversation 
with a prominent politician inside. Or 
the day he laid his finger tips on a tele- 
phone cord and heard what was being 
said over the wire. 

He didn't want to know those things ! 
They upset him, made him mad at him- 
self and disgusted with life ! He was 
losing the few friends he had ever had, 
also. Part of this was his fault. Some 
of them had given him time just out of 



THE TERRIBLE SENSE 



10S 



pity, or because they were in the same 
boat, or out of amusement. He knew 
why they had put up with him now. He 
knew it from the fine differences of tone 
they used with him. 

But there was something more than 
that. He frightened them lately. His 
motions were strangely nervous and 
quick, and sometimes he answered re- 
marks they had thought, but had not 
stated. He would say, "Here comes 
John," when John was still half a block 
away and around the corner. 

And occasionally he dropped things 
which showed he knew a lot of what 
they had said behind his back or in the 
privacy of their homes. Such as the clay 
he consoled Mary Bevins, who lived 
three floors lower down in a different 
house, because her husband had left her. 
It hadn't been a loud quarrel and Mary 
was telling people that he was just away 
on a business trip. 

The only satisfaction in life was that 
he had tamed his wife. It had taken 
some outbursts of rage and fists which 
he was thoroughly ashamed of when he 
thought about it. But it had had a sur- 
prising effect. She had become docile, 
loving, quiet, soft-spoken. In fact she 
had become a new woman. Where she 
had been wont to yell with a piercing 
voice, she now sang softly. It had af- 
fected her temperament. She was happy. 
She told her cronies about what a cap- 
able and self-reliant man M r. Clews was. 

The first cold of winter struck bitterly 
into Theodore's bones. It hurt him, and 
he felt very sleepy. He would go to 
sleep the minute he got home. In the 
morning he would find himself doubled 
up with his knees beneath his chin and 
his hands firmly clenching the footboard 
of the bed. 

Frightened, he went to see Dr. Botts. 
He did more analyzing about matters 
lately because so many new and inex- 
plicable events took place in his life. 
He had figured out that his sleepiness 
might have something to do with his 



audio operation. The city noise had 
assaulted his nerves, and perhaps he was 
run down. 

Dr. Botts was away for a year in the 
jungles ! 

BLEAKLY, Clews faced the fact. 
There was nobody who could do any- 
thing for him. Nobody else could even 
find anything wrong or different with 
him ! For the first time in his life, he 
sat down and seriously analyzed himself 
and his private life. For the first time 
he realized how his character, as well 
as his body and nerves, had changed 
since the operation. 

Now he was sleepy, so terribly sleepy 
that he could barely pull through the 
day. He felt he would simply have to 
take a month off. He went to see his 
president. 

There was a conference inside the 
office. Clews sat down wearily against 
the wall and spread his arms. Instantly, 
he heard every word said inside. The 
president was trying to put through a 
deal, and whoever he was talking to 
wanted a higher price. 

Suddenly Clews paid closer heed. 
There was something about the man's 

voice He began to make mental 

notes of his reactions. When the man 
passed out, the deal was supposedly all 
set. 

Clews walked in and said, "That man 
was lying. He isn't going to sign the 
order. I think he's a spy from another 
company." 

The president scoffed and scowled. 

Clews said he wanted a month vaca- 
tion. 

The president thought of Clews' con- 
fidential knowledge of the company 
books and said, "Well, we'll see." 

Clews left knowing the president was 
trying to find some way to get rid of 
him. He was too sleepy to think much 
about it. He was almost asleep when 
the president burst in that afternoon 
with a white face. 



106 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



"That man this morning was from 
Clinton & Co., our sharpest rivals ! 
They've got our inside price and a good 
guess at production costs !" 

Clews shrugged wearily. "He sounded 
crooked," he said simply. 

The president looked at Clews 
strangely. He said, "Clews, you do look 
sick. I think a winter in the south is 
what you need. I'm giving you enough 
to go south for six months." 

But Clews didn't go south. He went 
home and went to bed. In a half- 
wakeful state he kept trying to get fur- 
ther under the covers. His wife went 
out, and while she was gone he crawled 
over to the closet and crawled inside, 
moving in a sleep-walking trance. 

SLOWLY, a feeling of cramped in- 
activity came to him. Sluggish life 
seemed returning to long-stiffened arms 
and legs. His eyes blinked open, and 
shut hastily. A low, purring hum of 
outer sounds welled up, and through it 
the soft, low twittering of birds. Some- 
where a breeze ruffled leaves. Clews 
shook himself slightly, uneasily, and 
opened his eyes again. 

The surroundings dazed his slow- 
awakening mind. Something, vaguely, 
was wrong with his room. Something 
dark and brown draped peculiarly in 
front of him. Sensation messages from 
the nerves of arms and legs began to 
convey meaning. His legs were hooked 
over the coat-rail in his closet, and he 
was hanging head-down, quite comfort- 
ably, but extremely hungry. He belched 
softly and swung stiffly to the floor. 

His wife was coming, he knew sud- 
denly, and he relaxed gently on the 
floor, seated with arms queerly angled. 
His wife entered, and looked at him with 
nc surprise, but a vague satisfaction. 
"Hungry?" 

He nodded slowly. His neck was 
stiff. "Very." 

"You were last week." She went out 
again. Slowly her words penetrated to 



his wakening mind. He turned gingerly 
and looked out the window. His arm 
lifted and moved about. The twittering 
of birds grew stronger. A pair of blue- 
birds were struggling with a tangle of 
string in the crotch of the old maple 
tree. He could scarcely see them be- 
cause of the leaves. 

"It's— spring," said Mr. Clews 
numbly, when his wife returned with a 
deep cup of broth. 

"May," she nodded. Her voice was 
calm, but her eyes were frightened. 
"You — you hibernated. I — I went to 
the doctor, but he was gone — the one 
that operated on you — and his assistant 
came. He said to let you alone. You 
woke up a little a week ago." 

Mr. Clews drank the soup, and hic- 
cuped gently. His head nodded forward 
and he crawled toward the bed. "I'll be 
all right," he said, with a peculiar cer- 
tainty of knoAvledge. He crawled into 
the bed, and went to sleep. 

Six hours later he woke up again, and 
ate some more. In a week he was mov- 
ing around, the queer stiffness going 
from his limbs. He felt fine. 

CLEWS made his first trips out late 
at night. He took careful stock of him- 
self now. He had changed even more 
during the winter. His motions were 
three times as quick, and often he would 
stop and wheel, almost dancing, at some 
strange noise. 

A cop standing quietly in a doorway 
suddenly said, "Well, well, butterfly, 
come along and we'll find a nice cocoon 
for you !" 

Clews darted away in terror and hor- 
rible realization of his motions. 

He kept to even later hours and less 
frequented districts along the waterfront 
after that. He tried to avoid people. 
But he got in the center of a brightly 
lighted block one night when groups 
came out of bars at both comers and 
stood lounging on the curb. He had to 
pass one. He checked his motions as 



THE TERRIBLE SENSE 



107 



much as possible, but his steps were light 
and dainty, and he had the feeling that 
he fluttered down the block. Any distant 
or near-by sound and involuntarily his 
quivering arms and legs would leap out 
or his head cock to one side. 

A tough drunk at the corner watched 
his progress. He stepped out and began 
badgering. Clews' undeniable instinct 
was to run. But something in the 
tough's voice turned his fear to anger. 
A psychiatrist might have told him .the 
root of anger is fear. He told the tough 
to shut up. 

"Well, for cripes' sake, listen at the 
prissy telling me to shut up !" roared the 
tough. He stepped nearer and made a 
sudden feint and pass. It whistled over 
Clews head. 

CLEWS HAD never had a fight in 
his life. The mere thought terrified him. 
For ten minutes he avoided annihilation 
simply because he heard the fighter's 
motion and dodged. He had no con- 
scious thought of dodging; it was sheer 
timed nervous reaction. He was utterly 
frightened. 

Then the roars of the tough began to 
goad him. A particular stream of curses 
had a high-pitched note which made him 
see red. He began fighting back, sav- 
agely, with no idea of how to fight, but 
jumping in and out like a — bat! They 
pulled him off the tough when his teeth 
were sinking into the man's throat. 

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, wild- 
cat!" a dapper member of the party 
said. "Man, if you're going to kill 'em, 
make the public pay to see it ! Come in 
and have a drink and cool off." 

Clews went in because he was taken. 
He sat down shaking like a leaf. It 
appeared he had just butchered the 
lightweight champ! 

"You don't look like much," the dap- 
per man said, "but I've never seen such 
beautiful weaving and timing in my life ! 
Why, fellow, you'll make a fortune! 
You don't even need to hit 'em. They'll 



go down from missing you !" 

Before Clews could understand quite 
how it had happened, he was on his way 
to becoming lightweight champion. The 
nervous, fluttering, perfect timing of his 
motions packed the arenas. Never had 
a man behaved like that in the ring be- 
fore ! But it was the goods — nobody 
touched him in twelve fights! By then, 
he was learning about fighting, and when 
he got against tougher opponents he 
could lean and take their punches. But 
they seldom landed. Clews was too fast 
in his jittery, pulsing, nervous man- 
euvers. No matter what tricks they 
pulled, he seemed to sense them, the 
direction of their punches, the timing 
and power in them, and be somewhere 
else when they arrived. 

Then his own knockout began, for his 
timing was perfect, and once he learned 
to hit, it did not take much power to 
stretch his opponent on the canvas. In- 
evitably, these knockouts were correlated 
with the size and yelling of the crowd. 
They would come in the same round 
with a certain tempo and note and 
decibel measurement of the crowd's roar. 
The fierceness with which Clews hit 
them was something uncontrollable, ab- 
solutely not part of his conscious self. 
It was direct reflex of that roar on the 
nerves of his body. 

Nobody ever knew the torture, the 
sheer physical pain, those roars caused 
him. He struck out in nervous frenzy. 
The night the crowd increased its roar 
after he knocked out the champ, he 
K. O.'d the referee and three men in 
the ring before they grabbed him. 

But Clews was not happy. Loyally, 
his wife accompanied him in public, but 
at home he caught her sobbing at times, 
and when she looked at him or he 
hugged her closely, there was terror in 
her eyes. 

"I don't know what's come over you, 
Ted," she said once — she called him 
"Ted" now — "it gives me the creeps. 
It isn't just you hanging like that all 



108 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



winter. The doctor said that was just 
nerves had drawn your bones and mus- 
cles up or something. But it's " 

"What?" asked Clews nervously. 

"I — I don't know how to say it. I 
don't even know myself. It's just like 
you were something different, like an 
animal or something. I was up at the 
zoo the other day and I felt just the 
same." She stopped and broke out cry- 
ing miserably. 

"When you looked at the — the bats ?" 
Clews asked with a dry voice. 

She nodded unhappily. 

CLEWS went into strange foreign 
parts that night. He did not know ex- 
actly what the doctor had done to him, 
but he did know it was tied up with a 
bat's ultra-sensitive auditory system. 

Three battle-scarred cats sitting on a 
stoop hissed and arched their backs at 
him. He turned, and with screams of 
terror they rushed away. He looked 
down at his arm and saw it was oscil- 
lating rapidly in a peculiar, half-turned 
position. His fingers were open and 
moved without any volition of his. 

He shivered, and drew his arms 
tightly to his sides. He knew exactly 
how far the cats had gone! Two of 
them had gone to the back of a house; 
one had raced along the street and 
turned east. 

Theodore Clews felt very unhappy. 
He was rich, and popular with crowds, 
and his "eccentricities" were now called 
"form" and studied. But he was losing 
his wife. And, oddly, he was in love 
with this woman who had upbraided him 
for so many years. Botts or no Botts, 
he had to know how far this bat busi- 
ness had gone! 

. His manager looked at him with pop- 
ping eyes. The cigar in his mouth went 
out for the first time in history. "You're 
nuts !" he informed Clews. 
. Clews smiled without humor. "Maybe. 
But I want to try it. I'm giving up the 
title in any event." 



"Holy Moses, he wants a title match 
and he's going to fight blindfolded! 
Tape over his eyes!" the manager 
yelped. "Listen, Clews, you're a sensa- 
tion. You're a genius. You got some- 
thing nobody ever heard of before ! But 
you got to see a man's fists if you're not 
going to get hit by 'em!" 

"That's what I want to find out," 
Clews said. 

He won his argument because he had 
been a careful bookkeeper and he had as 
carefully read the contract he signed 
with his manager. They had to do what 
he said. 

Ziggy Nelson, his manager, was quite 
tight the night of the fight. He wiped 
perspiration from a beefy forehead and 
planked down fifty thousand dollars at 
50 to 1 odds. The commission agent 
said, around his cigar, "I thought it was 
your fighter was cracked ! There's going 
to be a special judge to see that tape 
is O. K." 

"I know it!" Ziggy said from his 
boots. "But I don't want my fighter to 
be crazy all alone. Who else is betting 
on him?" 

"Nobody," the agent said and looked 
guilty. "Except me," he added in a 
whisper. 

Theodore Clews, the Battling Bat, sat 
on his rubbing table nervously. About 
fourteen thousand people were out in 
the arena. He could judge from the 
noise. He shook his head when they 
held out tape for his hands. He was 
going to need them free as possiWe. 

His wife kidded him for the benefit of 
the press. He heard her soft intake of 
breath before she went through the ritual 
and knew she was ready to scream with 
that unaccountable fear. He thought of 
her kissing one of those bats in the zoo. 
A woman really had to love you to stand 
you changing to a bat ! 

Well — tonight would prove it. He 
went out and climbed into the ring. 
They put. tape over his eyes and in- 



THE TERRIBLE SENSE 



109 



spected it to see that it really shut out 
all sight. One of the judges climbed out 
of the ring, Clews knew. 

THE GONG rang and he jumped out 
straight for his opponent. The man was 
grinning — which Clews did not know — 



which sense it was — most of what the 
man did. At the end of the third ho 
was still on his feet and had taken no 
killing punches. But his ears were ring- 
ing, buzzing — and he was conscious of 
them. 

In the fourth, that hysteria that set 



A 





He could not see — it wasn't feeling — nor hearing, quite — but somehow 
he knew where his opponent's gloves were moving! 



but he did know when he put his left 
foot forward and began a haymaker up- 
percut. Me fefc it coming and ducked. 
It missed him by the fraction of an inch. 
The crowd roared. 

Clews was not quite certain. He got 
pretty badly battered up — much worse 
than ever before. But he could hear, or 
feel — he was tired of trying to decide 



him wild came into the crowd's roar. 
Clews heard his opponent's breathing 
and the sound of his shuffling feet. The 
man was puzzled and he was scared. 
His timing was off. He was going to 
pieces. 

The roar crescendoed, the savage yell 
for a knockout. Clews had never been 
so terrified in his life. A bat caught in 



130 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



a giant spider web might feel that way ! 
He almost ran from the ring. Then 
came that maddening tempo and pierc- 
ing note. Clews mind went red. He 
lashed out in a series of short jabs. 

He did not even know that they con- 
nected, but he knew exactly where the 
man's jaw and arms and body were. 
What was the answer? How did he 
know ? The roar went higher. He hit 
again and crossed to the solar plexus. 

Sudden terror leaped up within him — 
but no longer terror of the noise of the 
fight. It was terror at what part of him 
had become, for he knew the answer. 
His body heard the fine oscillations and 
pressure differences caused by that oilier 
moving body ! It was not like a bat's 
hearing — it was a bat's hearing! 



He shrieked and lashed out with a 
bare six-inch blow. There was a crash. 
The man went down. The count was 
ten. They held up Clews' hand. The 
roar had never been so deafening. 
Clews shivered with the pain of that 
roar, and fell unconscious on top of his 
man. 

He blinked open his eyes and saw 
men's lips moving. The dressing room 
was crowded, and the stamp of feet was 
heavy. But he did not feel them. His 
eye fell on a cop. He made a sign for 
the cop's whistle and blew it until his 
lungs felt ready to break. He gave Ziggy 
Nelson a happy tap on the cheek and 
grinned. He looked shyly for his wife. 

He couldn't hear a thing. He was 
himself again. 




SMASH INTRIGUE AND EVIL THROUGHOUT THE WOULi* 



"Power" 

For this one month, the Analytical Laboratory department has been 
expanded. Since Astounding began, it has conducted a type of Analytical 
Laboratory — Brass Tacks. But the results of the analyses have not been 
published. We have tried to draw conclusions as to the character, the likes 
and dislikes, of you who read the magazine from the letters. It has, as you 
can see, helped develop a better magazine because it helped us know what 
better meant to you. 

Philosophers and logicians have developed a sort of mathematics of logics. 
"Let this idea be represented by the symbol A, and this other idea by the 

symbol B. Then ". The whole purpose of that symbolism is to escape the 

difficulties of human reactions to words, reactions arising from past experi- 
ences. What does power mean? A man says "I want power.'" If he is an 
electrical engineer, speaking to a group of engineers, he is thinking in terms 
of kilowatts. If he is a statesman — or a general — or a plain politician — his 
meaning may be any of three other things. 

What meaning that word power conjures up in his mind depends on past 
experiences, his previous environment. It may vary from one purely intel- 
lectual concept — the mathematical symbols of an Einstein — to another entirely 
different purely intellectual concept; the vision of a great statesman. 

What, then, is a better story? The Analytical Laboratory has ana- 
lyzed and summarized the direct reactions as shown by your letters. Natur- 
ally, I'm keenly interested in what you thought of stories I thought were good. 
But the important thing is the future, not the past. The Analytical Labora- 
tory is designed to help me, and the authors, to know what you will like even 
more than to know what you did like. 

What is power in a story, in your estimation? Is it the human power of 
The Master Shall Not Die! or the power of scope and of dynamos in 
Galactic Patrol! 

For that is another — an author's — meaning of power. That they — and 
I — may know better something of your viewpoint, your outlook, the Analyti- 
cal Laboratory contains a new data sheet this month. Two items in that 
data sheet alone are of paramount importance in defining what is to you — 
and hence to Astounding — the meaning of power and beffer stories. Age 
group and occupation I particularly need to know. 

Many who read have never written us comments. I hope that they, too, 
will aid us in preparing this research data. 

The Editor. 



112 

Asteroid Pirates 



by Royal W. Heckman 

Concerning the bullet-proof, but highly intelligent 
Saturnism Apes, and Venusian dreams of Empire 




ASTEROID PIRATES 



113 



GREG FENNEL dropped to the 
sidewalk. His toes rapped upon 
the fused silica, then his gravity 
repulsor died and his heels settled firmly. 
He twisted his belt buckle. Magnetic 
wing locks snapped open. The short 
wing rolled into a small box upon his 
shoulders. In a few seconds Greg had 
become a pedestrian. 

Few people were about. All Earth- 
lings, Fennel noted. He was a little sur- 
prised at not seeing any balloon-headed, 
skeleton men from Mars. Or those in- 
fernal Vcnusians! This part of New 
York was extremely popular with the 
inhabitants of Earth's neighboring plan- 
ets. Especially after midnight. 

Greg was hungry. The new Inter- 
planetary Restaurant was just around 
the corner. It was a dandy place to pick 
up news items for his ten-minute col- 
umn in the New York Radio Star. He 
made the turn. 

A rotund Venusian rolled swiftly to- 
ward him. Fennel jumped aside. The 
Venusian rolled to the outer edge of the 
walk and went swiftly on his way. The 
small, round head stuck out from the 
center of one side like a black hub cap. 
Grca; cursed. 

They ought to put a speed limit on 
those living pinwheels ! Of course, with 
their stubby legs and spherical bodies, 
the Venusians found it difficult to wad- 
dle along a crowded street. But when 
they lay down and rolled, twenty miles 
an hour was low gear to them ! 

Fennel started ahead. The restau- 
rant occupied a ground-floor segment 
near the middle of the block. The seg- 
ment adjoining it was still lighted. Greg 
caught soft strains of Martian music as 
he passed. The proprietors, two lanky 
Martians, were sitting in front of one 
of the ether-phones for which they were 
the agents. The taller of the two raised 
his head. Fennel recognized him. He 
was Harg, the shrewdest spy in the 
Solar System! 

Greg stopped. He looked upward. 



He wondered what Harg was doing in 
New York. But ostentatiously, he was 
surveying the air lanes above the street. 

There were still a few flyers in the 
Perambulator Lane, the lowest of the 
three. Most of these were romantic 
couples flying home with interlocked 
wings. The Business Lane was entirely 
deserted. But quite a few green flying- 
lights were visible in the Speed Lane, 
and the blue flashes of the Air Police 
were everywhere. Fennel hardly saw 
them. 

Harg was news. He represented the 
entire Solar System. He was probably 
the most important spy in the Inter- 
planetary Espionage. Some day, Greg 
told himself, he would belong to that. 
He had already taken the first step. He 
had been a member of the American Se- 
cret Police for over six months. 

Fennel sighed and turned away. He'd 
better not play around with Harg. The 
Martian was news he did not dare 
handle. He entered the restaurant. 

Bert Lippert conducted him to a 
booth. Lippert was one-third owner. 
The other two-thirds was owned by 
Flan, a Martian, and Bellon, a Venu- 
sian. Fennel disliked both. 

"Glad you came, Greg," Lippert 
greeted him. "You've been leaving us 
out of your air column lately. Why ?" 

"No news, Bert." Fennel adjusted 
the arrow on the menu set in the table 
top and punched the various dishes he 
wanted. "I don't handle advertising. 
Give me news and your restaurant goes 
on the air." 

"Listen, Greg." Lippert dropped into 
the chair on the other side of the table. 
"This joint is full of news. So full I'm 
afraid. The biggest blow-up the Solar 
System has ever seen is due to happen 
in less than a week. And I'm in it. I 
don't want to be, but I am !" 

"Jupiter Juice?" That soothing, in- 
sanity-producing liquor was outlawed. 
But Greg knew it could be gotten right 
here. 



114 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



"Oh, that ! Hell, no." Lippert waved 
the idea aside. "We handle it, sure. 
You know that. But it's cut below the 
danger point, and the city police inspect 
it. Our customers don't know that, of 
course, or they wouldn't think they were 
being devilish when they bought it." 

"What's the belly-ache, then?" 

GREG WAS becoming curious. If 
something big was going to happen, it 
would explain Harg's presence next 
door. And if he, Fennel, could uncover 
it, he would be up for a place on the 
Interplanetary just like that ! 

"It's Bellon. That bloated Venu- 
sian's getting ideas. He's been hob-nob- 
bing with the folks back home lately. I 
listened in. Venus wants a colony !" 

"Sure she does." Greg admitted it 
readily. He flipped open a door in the 
wall and rolled out a steaming tray. 
Ah ! Roast beef flanked by Martian po- 
tatoes! And a huge plate of Venusian 
mushrooms! He started to eat and 
spoke between, mouthfuls. "Sure Venus 
wants a colony. But she won't buy. 
The Martians offered to sell Diemos, 
their smaller moon, a long time ago." 

"Aw, who wants that chunk of iron ! 
The Venusians have bigger ideas. They 
want a planet !" 

Fennel carefully laid down his fork. 
"You mean — Earth?" he inquired softly. 

"No." Lippert leaned forward and 
drew designs on the tablecloth with his 
finger. "They want the Asteroids. All 
of 'em." 

Greg gripped his wrist. 

"Are you crazy, Bert?" Then he 
leaned back and grinned. "You must 
have taken a shot of Jupiter Juice. The 
Asteroids belong to Earth. Why, more 
than a third of them are peopled by 
Earthlings ! We'd never sell them. As 
for taking them by force, we could blow 
Venus to pieces if she tried." 

"Sure we could! But she's going to 
try. In fact, she has already. Notice 
any funny flashes in the sky lately ?" 



"Yes, and I know what they were. A 
couple of the tiny Asteroids collided. 
Nobody knows why. But no damage 
was done so we're not worrying !" 

"I know why. And I'm worrying, 
too. The Venusians did that. They're 
going to assemble the Asteroids into one 
large planet. They've got a base on 
Mars, and a bunch of Martians are help- 
ing them. There'll be hell to pay in a 
week or so." 

"Wait a minute, Bert. It doesn't 
make sense, but there may be something 
in this. How can they assemble the 
Asteroids ?" 

"Gravity." Lippert glanced at the 
row of booths opposite them. 

All were occupied. Most of the oc- 
cupants were Venusians, but there was a 
fair sprinkling of Earthlings and Mar- 
tians among them. One booth held 
three Saturnian apes. They looked sav- 
age, but were from a very intelligent 
race. None took any interest in what 
Lippert was doing so he went on. 

"It's so darned simple, Greg. Look. 
Your gravity repulsor nullifies gravity, 
doesn't it? If you turn it on and jump, 
or get some sort of a send, you keep on 
going and don't come back until you 
shut it off again." 

"That's common knowledge. What 
has that to do with this?" 

"All right, Greg. Now take the 
gravity amplifier. You turn one on 
when you're wearing it and you stand 
' rooted to the spot. In fact, if you turn 
it on strong enough, the increased grav- 
ity will flatten you out like a pancake !" 

"Sure. But I still don't get your 
drift." 

"Use your head, Greg." Lippert 
leaned forward and talked fast. "The 
Asteroids are scattered along one orbit. 
They exert more or less gravity upon 
each other. Suppose two, fairly close 
together, were to have their gravity for 
all others nullified and their gravity for 
each other amplified. What would hap- 
pen?" 



ASTEROID PIRATES 



115 



"Why, they'd smash. Say, Bert, 
that's it ! That's what happened I" 

"Exactly. The Venusians did that to 
some so small they attracted little at- 
tention. They crashed. There was 
nothing near enough to attract the fly- 
ing pieces, and these settled together. 
A loose, spongy mass. But, as this mass 
increases, its natural gravity will in- 
crease also. The mass will settle and 
harden. In time, it could be built into 
a planet." 

"It could be. Lord, Bert, this is 
something big! I'm going — oh, hello, 
Bellon. Anything in the line of news 
out in the party room ?" 

THE VENUSIAN had approached 
silently. He was less than three feet tall, 
more than three feet in diameter. Fen- 
nel knew that the belt around Bellon's 
waist, upon which the Venusian rolled, 
was more than ten feet long. One had 
to stoop to see the stunted, thick legs. 
But the arms made up for that short- 
ness by being fully five feet from shoul- 
der to wrist. They had no joints and 
could be coiled and twisted in a snake- 
like manner. They were usually wrapped 
about the Venusians' necks with only a 
couple feet left to dangle at their sides. 

"News?" Bellon lifted his pig-eyes 
to Fennel's face. "There is news only 
in this room, Greg Fennel. But news 
you might hear here is not to be passed 
over the radio. Is it, Bert?" 

Greg said nothing. Lippert was 
again drawing pictures, tracing them 
slowly and carefully. He neither spoke 
nor looked up. 

"Is it, Bert?" Bellon repeated. 

Lippert jerked erect. 

"Eh? No, no! Of course not. I 
mean — yes, certainly. We need more 
advertising, Bellon. Greg should give 
it to us. But he says we've got to have 
news or we won't be mentioned." 

"He is quite right. And did you get 
the news, Greg?" 

"Not what my boss'd call news." 

AST— 8 



, Greg shook his head, as though he re- 
gretted the necessity of refusing their re- 
quest for publicity. "I know you fel- 
lows would like to have me start a 'ru- 
mor about your Jupiter Juice traffic. 
That'd bring results. Maybe a raid. 
And when that happened, your Juice 
t would be found legal. Nope. Sorry, 
Bert, but nothing doing." 

Lippert caught on. His tone became 
wheedling. 

"Aw, Greg, why not? A few words 
wouldn't mean a thing to you or the 
Star and would help us like the deuce. 
Your boss'd never know. And if he 
did, he wouldn't care." 

Bellon bobbed his head and smiled. 

"Very nice," he admitted. "If it were 
not for this" — he coiled a snaky finger 
around the arrow and lifted the wireless 
menu from the table top — "I might be- 
lieve you." 

Fennel leaned forward. A dictograph 
lay before him. He paled. Lippert 
leaped to his feet. 

"You can't get away with this, Bel- 
lon," he shouted. "You're going too 
far !" 

J 'I am," Bellon agreed. "Too far to 
back out. And you, Bert, it is too bad, 
but " 

Lippert staggered. A small red dot 
appeared on his forehead. Two other 
dots sprang into view beside it. He 
grabbed the edge of the table. 

"Needled !" His breath came in short 
gasps. "You shot me, Bellon! Greg, 

tell Har " He fell forward, then 

slid off the table and slumped to the 
floor. 

Fennel jumped up. He held a needle 
pistol pointed at the center of Bellon's 
forehead. Before he could shoot, the 
Venusian tipped over on his side and 
rolled into the next booth. Fennel 
stepped out upon the floor. 

The double doors leading to the party 
room closed. Just inside the booth 
room, stood Flan. The Martian propri- 



116 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



etor was aiming a needle pistol at Greg's 
chest. 

"Put up the gun, Greg," he ordered. 
"What's the trouble?" 

Fennel's lips twitched. He was fully 
aroused. But he controlled his anger, 
forcing himself to think. 

He had to get out. Had to notify the 
proper authorities of what had been 
hatched in the Interplanetary Restau- 
rant. He looked behind him. 

The floor was crowded. Each booth 
had belched its quota of Earthlings, Mar- 
tians, or Venusians upon the tile sur- 
face. Every man was armed, held a 
needle pistol pointed at him. Except 
the three Saturnian apes. 

THEY HAD not moved. They still 
sat at their table, calmly eating. But 
their eyes missed nothing. They were 
frankly curious, yet their attitude told 
him plainly that they intended to mind 
their own business and were not to be 
drawn into the present squabble. The 
Saturnians seldom mingled with the rest 
of the planetarians. 

Fennel slowly pocketed his gun. Bcl- 
lon waddled from the booth where he 
had taken refuge. He was all smiles. 

"Good work, Flan." He nodded to 
the extremely thin, eight-foot Martian. 

Flan lowered his long arm and tucked 
the pistol under his belt. His enormous 
head wagged. Fennel always expected 
to hear the thin neck crack whenever a 
Martian nodded. But in spite of their 
delicate appearance, the Martians were 
an extremely hardy and powerful race. 

"What now, Bellon? We can keep 
up this restaurant farce no longer. Had 
We not better leave ?" 

"Immediately, Flan." Bellon turned 
to where his countrymen had gathered 
into as close a mass as their girths 
would permit. "Ganot, go at once and 
gather our Venusian crews. Have them 
all roll down to our airport. You will 
take off at daybreak and go straight to 
Venus. Explain things to our govern- 



ment, and tell them to begin operations 
as soon as possible. Then lead the air 
fleet back to the Asteroids." 

Ganot bowed. He spoke to the 
men around him, and most of them fol- 
lowed him through the rear door of the 
room. Bellon instructed the rest. 

"You, Hagal, gather the crews for 
our Martian base. You will command 
the Venus detachment and be under the 
orders of Stor. Stor will lead the ships 
to Mars, collect our fleet, and load them 
with all available gravity repulsors and 
amplifiers. Then head back for the 
Asteroids. We will be waiting at the 
meeting place in our flagship." 

Stor, a tall Martian, assented with a 
grim smile. He said something to Ha- 
gal, and all but two of the Venusians and 
four of the Martians left the room. The 
Earthlings, a dozen hard-faced Amer- 
icans, remained. Fennel faced them. 

"You fellows are in this, eh?" he 
jeered. "A bunch of traitors! Dupes! 
If this scheme should succeed — which it 
won't — you'll get paid in needles from 
Venusian pistols. You ought to know 
that. And if it fails, the pay-off will 
take place right here on Earth. What 
have you to gain ?" 

"Plenty, fellow." A big. black-haired 
man grinned insolently. "We'll be taken 
care of. None of us are worrying 
about what's going to happen. We knozv! 
We're handling the flagship! Bellon 
and Flan are both riding that. Naw! 
We got nothing to worry about." 

"You see, Greg!" Bellon smiled 
smugly. "You haven't a chance. Every- 
thing is taken care of. And everybody. 
Even you." He stopped abruptly. He 
had caught sight of the three Saturnian 
apes for the first time. 

They had finished eating. The three 
were leaning back in their chairs view- 
ing the drama with visible interest. 
They were not the least bit fright- 
ened or embarrassed. Their only uneasi- 
ness, Greg knew, was due to the unac- 
customed clothing all planetarians were 



ASTEROID PIRATES 



117 



forced to don when they landed upon 
Earth. 

Flan grinned good-humoredly. 

"It seems, Bellon," he said, "that you 
had better take care of our unexpected 
audience. They have heard too much 
to be left out of our plans now." 

Bellon nodded and waddled to the 
booth. He addressed one of the two 
facing him. 

"What do you Saturnians know?" 

THE APE looked up, baring his teeth 
in an engaging grin. Then he ignored 
the Venusian and spoke rapidly to his 
companions. The three gurgled happily, 
seemed to think something extremely 
pleasant lay before them. They nodded 
in agreement. The first again faced 
Bellon. 

"Everything, my dear Venusian. It is 
perfectly plain, is it not? All of Venus 
and at least a part of Mars are conspir- 
ing to steal the Asteroids from Earth. 
Since you spoke of taking gravity re- 
pulsors and amplifiers there, you must 
intend to consolidate those small plan- 
ets into the large globe it once was. Am 
I right?" 

"Too right." Bellon's tone was decid- 
edly unpleasant. "I don't know how 
you figured it out from the little you 
heard, but you have done so. You know 
what that means?" 

The Saturnian gurgled again. The 
other two echoed the gurgle in an equally 
pleasant manner. "Assuredly, Bellon. 
But you must not think our intelligence 
too remarkable. You see, we Saturni- 
ans had the same idea several centuries 
ago, Earth time. But Earth was then 
exploring the Asteroids so we felt she 
had a prior claim and gave up the idea. 
And what it means, my dear Bellon, is 
this : You must either take us with you 
or kill us. Am I right again?" 

"You are," Bellon declared em- 
phatically. "Possibly you could also ad- 
vise me what to do about it?" 

"I could." The ape nodded sagely. 



"But you would not take my advice. 
Bak, Urg, and I have discussed the 
matter fully. We think the same. You 
must kill us, Bellon. Your only hope 
for success lies in doing that immedi- 
ately. Unless you do, we will thwart 
your plans." 

Bellon sneered. Flan, evincing the 
rare good humor common to his race, 
grinned in appreciation of his partner's 
discomfiture. The other four Martians 
and the Americans did the same. 

The assured manner of the Saturnians 
impressed Fennel favorably. He liked 
the apes. Their facetiousness was not 
assumed. They were absolutely with- 
out fear. If Bellon could be induced to 
spare them, anything might be possible. 

"Monkeying with murder won't help 
you, Bellon," he warned. "Best leave 
well enough alone. You've killed an 
American. Our police will never forget 
that. If Saturn's police take up your 
trail also, you'll never escape." 

Bak, the largest Saturnian, sat alone 
on one side of the table. He threw back 
his head and laughed uproariously. 
"My dear Greg," he gasped, "pray, do 
not intercede for us. If it is predestined 
that we are to die from needle pistols, 
that shall be our fate." He released an- 
other outburst of laughter, then added, 
"But I fear Jan spoke truly. Bellon 
will not heed our advice. He will spare 
us." 

Bellon bristled. He knew he was be- 
ing baited. But he knew, also, that the 
fearlessness of the apes had excited the 
admiration of the Martians and their 
American allies. He forced a smile. 
"Very true, my dear Bak. Your lives 
will be spared, but you will honor us 
with your presence on the trip. Must I 
add, as prisoners?" 

"But, Bellon," Urg looked up 
earnestly, "you have not forgotten that 
you cannot succeed while we live? You 
see, it is foreordained that we block your 
plans. My advice would be " 

"Enough !" Bellon's patience was at 



118 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



an end. He turned to his two compatri- 
ots. "Search them. Search Greg Fen- 
nel also. Make sure they have no weap- 
ons of any kind. You men," he ad- 
dressed the Americans, "bring the sur- 
face cars to the back entry. We shall 
leave for the airport immediately." 

GREG ALLOWED the sinuous 
arms of one of the Venusians to travel 
over his body. The needle pistol was 
taken. So were the two extra pellets of 
ammunition. He even allowed his in- 
dividual flyer to be lifted from his shoul- 
ders. He would have no use for that 
anyway. It wouldn't work once they 
were out of Earth's atmosphere, and the 
spaceships would dive through that in 
seconds. 

The Saturnians were greatly amused. 
They offered no resistance, and nothing 
of note was found on them. Not even 
needle pistols. They wore the outer 
summer garments adopted by all Earth 
males and that varied only in color and 
texture: trousers, sleeveless shirt, and 
jacket. Greg wondered where they 
could have bought clothes large enough 
to fit their enormous bodies. 

He saw their true size while they were 
being hurried along a wide corridor to 
the back of the building. They stooped 
forward as they walked, but even then 
their heads towered above those of the 
Martians ! Each must have weighed 
over eight hundred pounds. Yet there 
was something about their stealthy 
movements that told Fennel they could 
act with the speed of light when the oc- 
casion demanded. 

The surface cars were parked close 
to the building. Two were light trucks 
with steel vault bodies. Money trans- 
ports. The rest were brand-new, glass- 
bodied passengers. The four-foot drive 
wheels in front were equipped with sep- 
arate oxy-hydrogen motors, and the 
glass plow windbreaker told Greg they 
were speedsters. Capable of five hun- 
dred miles an hour. 



Flan boarded the first car. Two Mar- 
tians, a Venusian, and an American got 
in with him. A vault truck was next. 
Jan, the Saturnian, gurgled when they 
pushed him inside. Greg saw a light in 
the rear of the segment rented by Harg, 
the Martian spy, and his partner in the 
ether-phone business. He wanted to 
call a warning but he knew the building 
was sound-proof. Then he was hustled 
into the truck, and the vault door 
clanged shut behind him. 

"What a joyful escapade !" Jan was 
thoroughly enjoying himself in spite of 
the cramped quarters. "How happy 
Bale and Urg must be !" 

"They won't be so happy when we 
reach the Asteroids," Greg said, glumly. 
"We'll be needled then !" 

"My dear Greg," the ape said between 
gurgles, "we Saturnians are needle- 
proof. That is what amuses us so 
greatly. Our hides are very thick, al- 
most puncture-proof. But the hair upon 
our bodies is our real protection. Needles 
spin. The hair winds about them tightly 
and stops them before any damage can 
be done. Is it not amusing?" 

"Very," Fennel answered laconically. 
"For you fellows." 

"Oh, do not become disheartened." 
Jan hastened to reassure him. "Bale, 
Urg and I shall certainly stay with you 
to the very end. We intended that from 
the start. Otherwise, we should have 
destroyed the creatures back in the In- 
terplanetary Restaurant. 

"If you had," Greg told him, "we 
could have saved the Asteroids then and 
there. We could have notified Harg of 
the Interplanetary Espionage and the 
Planetary Federation would have taken 
care of things." 

"Ego. Greg. Yes, I am afraid it was 
ego that forced us to act as we did. But 
let me explain. 

"Because we once planned to assem- 
ble the Asteroids, we Saturnians recog- 
nized what was taking place when the 
first collision occurred. We investigated. 



ASTEROID PIRATES 



119 



We traced the crews to their base upon 
Mars. We learned that the Venusians 
-were the instigators. We saw that a 
number of Interplanetary laws were 
about to be broken. 

"We Saturnians have mixed little with 
the rest of the planetarians. Most of 
them think we are ignorant savages. We 
want to join the Planetary Federation as 
an intelligent people. It would be years 
before we would be treated as such. But 
if we can accomplish something spectac- 
ular, something that will better condi- 
tions in our Solar System, we will win 
the respect of you planetarians with one 
stroke. 

"This happened. It seemed our 
chance. Can you blame us if we decided 
to act without notifying the P. F. or 
calling for assistance? Bak, Urg, and 
I came to Earth to begin operations." 

"Jan," Fennel found the Saturnian's 
arm and squeezed it, "I'm with you! 
I'm only a small cog in the American 
Secret Police, but when I tell what I 
know, you can be sure Earth will back 
your planet to the limit !" 

"Well said, Greg. I appreciate that 
greatly. I " 

The truck stopped. The door was 
jerked open. Jan and Fennel backed 
out and slid to the ground. A huge, 
torpedo-shaped spaceship was before 
them. 

DAY WAS BREAKING. The other 
spaceships had already taken off. The 
two were surrounded and hurried 
through the air locks and into the ves- 
sel. Bak and Urg were there. Both 
wore handcuffs and shackles — and broad 
grins ! 

Bellon was still angry. He shouted 
orders right and left. Jan was hand- 
cuffed, and the three Saturnians were 
sent above under heavy guard. Greg's 
heart sank when he was left alone. 

"You will stay with me, Greg. I 
have use for you. So long as you be- 
have, you will not be imprisoned." Bel- 



lon led the way into the commander's 
stateroom. 

"Sit down, Greg." He motioned to a 
chair. One of his long arms reached 
out and pulled a cushioned stool toward 
him. He slid it under his fat body from 
behind and sat down. 

"You think my plan is foolish, don't 
you?" 

"It is foolish," Fennel stated. "No 
matter how it turns out, you can't win. 
You may assemble the Asteroids. That 
I'll grant. But Venus can never hold 
them after you- do. The Planetary Fed- 
eration won't stand for it." 

"I think they will. What is the only 
way, except by purchase, that a planet 
may acquire a colony under the Solar 
laws?" 

"Exploration. Discovery means noth- 
ing. Nor does building. It is only by 
exploration that a planet may claim a 
new possession. Even conquest does 
not count." 

"True. Earth explored the Asteroids. 
They were awarded to her. But the 
product of our work will be a new 
planet. And the Venusians will explore 
it first." 

Greg laughed. 

"That's ridiculous. Our war fleet will 
surround it until it becomes ready for 
exploration." 

"Suppose," Bellon stressed each word, 
"the atmosphere of the new planet were 
found to be saturated with hilgin gas?" 

Fennel drew in his breath sharply. 
Hilgin gas! The deadliest gas in the 
Solar System ! It filtered through steel. 
Spacesuits could not keep it out. The 
merest whiff meant instantaneous death 
to any planetarian. Any — but a Ve- 
nusian ! 

For some reason or other, they were 
immune. Nobody knew why. It was 
like their ability to roll ; nobody under- 
stood how they did it. Greg doubted if 
they knew themselves. But, regardless 
of whys and wherefores, the fact still re- 



120 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



mained that hilgin gas did not affect the 
Venusians. 

Suddenly the real meaning of Bellon's 
allusion came to him ! Hilgin gas was 
as scarce as it was deadly. It had been 
found on only three planets: Venus, 
Jupiter, and Uranus. Ever)' bit of it 
had been collected by the Planetary 
Federation and it had been outlawed. 
It was now the sole atmosphere of Dor- 
las, the tiniest of all the tiny Asteroids ! 

And — Dorlas would be pulled into the 
forming planet. The gas would be lib- 
erated. The atmosphere of the new 
planet would be saturated. And if it 
was, none but a Venusian could explore 
the surface! 

"I see you understand." Bellon was 
grinning. "How simple it all is ! Venus 
will not even be connected with this ex- 
pedition. We are pirates ; no one knows 
us. No one but you and these Saturni- 
ans. And rest assured, Greg, that if you 
do not do as I tell you, you shall be 
silenced !" 

"You're a fiend, Bellon. But there's 
nothing I can do. Not now, at any rate. 
So I'll listen to what you've got to say. 
Go ahead." 

"We want your voice, Greg. On the 
air. Your ten-minute column is heard 
all over Earth. We can manage to have 
it heard all over the Solar System. We 
can make you the greatest newspaper at- 
traction in the Planetary Federation." 

Fennel remained silent. 

"You need only excite public opinion 
in favor of Venus. We are not highly 
esteemed. You can make everybody re- 
spect us. And convince the world that 
the new planet must be considered a free 
agent open to exploration by any willing 
to undergo the dangers of its atmos- 
phere !" 

Fennel said, "Go ahead, Bellon. Nee- 
dle me. You know I will never agree to 
that." 

"Suit yourself." Bellon stood up. 
"We will be there in forty-eight hours. 
You need not decide until then. Of 



course, I hope you will agree. But we 
shall go ahead whether you do or not. 
You are not vital to our plans." 

He waddled to the door, then stopped. 
His long finger pointed. 

"Your stateroom. You need sleep, 
Greg." He slammed the door. 

TWO DAYS later, Greg stood peer- 
ing through the transparent side of the 
ship. Flan stood behind him. His bony 
hands rested on Fennel's shoulders. 
Bellon was seated on a low stool near 
by. He pointed. 

"There it is, Greg. You can still de- 
cide." 

A green mist drew rapidly nearer. 
Fennel watched it thin, saw the rays of 
a clear Sun strike the surface of the 
black ball about which the mist swirled. 
Dorlas. The Deadly Dot of the Solar 
System ! 

His shoulders straightened. Flan's 
fingers tightened their grip. Fennel was 
trembling. 

"You have my answer." His voice 
was low and husky. He turned so 
quickly Flan's hand slipped from his 
shoulders. The Martian grabbed his 
arm. "Offer me something else, Bel- 
lon ! Forget this wild scheme of yours. 
Leave the Asteroids alone! Grant the 
Saturnians and me our liberty and I'll 
do anything you ask!" 

Bellon laughed. "No, no, Greg. That 
shall never be. Look! It is now too 
late !" 

He pointed again. Pin-points of light 
showed through the blackness. Red, 
yellow, green; red, yellow, green. Fen- 
nel had heard enough to know what 
they meant. The battleships of Venus 
were approaching the Asteroids. 

Flan loosened his grip. The Martian 
pointed. 

"There ! Below us ! Mars !" 

He was right. A long row of red 
lights was rising from beneath them. 
The Martian Pirates. Fennel groaned. 

Bellon murmured, "What wonderful 



ASTEROID PIRATES 



121 



timing!" then kicked his stool away and 
stood up. 

"Quick !" he called loudly. "Man the 
searchlights! It shall be the honor of 
the flagship to plant the gravity repulsor 
and amplifier upon Dorlas !" 

Thick beams of light shot through the 
darkness. Answering beams reached to- 
ward them. The flagship settled slowly, 
hung above the mist that hid the sur- 
face of Dorlas. The fleets deployed. 
Dorlas became the hub of a wheel of 
light. 

Venusians climbed into spacesuits. 
Flan, who had directed the placing of 
the repulsors and amplifiers in the air 
lock, came rushing back. He was grin- 
ning. "Bellon ! An idea just occurred 
to me. Would it not be nice if we 
were to allow Greg to assist the crew 
that boards Dorlas? Think of the 
honor !" 

"Flan !" Bellon's eyes lighted joy- 
fully. "What a beautiful idea! I al- 
most believe you're sentimental. Greg 
shall have the honor !" 

"No!" Fennel shouted hoarsely. 
"Needle me! Do what you want! But 
try to send me down in that poison, and 
I'll kill you !" 

Flan laughed. His needle pistol was 
in his hand. He stepped forward. 
Without warning, Fennel dove. 

Greg's shoulder hit the Martian hard. 
Flan doubled up. His grip loosened, 
and needle pistol dropped from his hand. 

Fennel twisted. He caught the pistol 
and spun it about. A stream of deadly 
needles shot from the barrel. 

Flan sagged. Greg gripped his body 
and held it before him. Bellon shouted. 

The pirate crew sprang forward. 
Greg backed away, spurting needles into 
their ranks. That held them back. He 
reached the stairway, shouted, "Jan!" 

There was an answering roar from 
above. Greg hesitated. Jan roared 
again. Bak and Urg joined in. 

Greg sent a volley into the squirming 



mass before him, drove the pirates back 
across the compartment. He dropped 
his human shield and leaped upward. 

HALFWAY up, Fennel stopped. An 
American stood at the top of the stairs, 
his pistol pointed at Greg's head. Greg 
leaped aside. Needles whined past his 
ear, and shouts of pain and rage came 
from the pirates below. The American 
above cursed. He dropped his gun, 
leaped on Greg, and swung a long- 
bladed knife. 

Fennel ducked. The knife slashed 
his shirt, opened a long gash along his 
ribs. He pulled his pistol free and 
jerked the trigger. 

The American folded up and rolled 
downward. Fennel followed his fall 
with the gun barrel, squeezing the trig- 
ger. Nothing happened. He threw the 
empty gun and raced to the next deck. 

Jan roared, "The switch ! The 
switch !" Greg found it, jerked hard on 
the handle. Magnetic locks clicked and 
three barred doors spun open. 

Bak led the rush. He smashed into 
the pirates on the landing, pushed them 
back upon the stairs. Then he leaped 
among them, growling like the ape he 
was. Bellowing, Urg hurled himself 
into the fight. 

Jan stopped. He lifted Greg tenderly, 
holding him erect in his powerful arms. 
He was laughing. 

"What an experience!" His eyes 
danced merrily. "Delightful, Greg. 
Really delightful! I'll never get over 
this, never ! Let me help you, my dear 
Greg." 

Fennel tried to pull away. 

"Never — mind — me," he gasped. "Bak 
and Urg — they're down there fighting E* 

"Of course they are!" Jan held up 
his hand. "Just hear them! But I 
could not interrupt ; they'd never forgive 
me. Come, Greg. It will all be over by 
the time we get there." 

It was. The compartment was a 
shambles. Bodies, ripped and torn, 



122 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



were strewn about. Bak's clothing hung 
in shreds. He pranced about, a hairy 
ape, vainly seeking some living thing 
upon which to pounce. There was no 
sign of Urg. 

Bak saw them. His fists clenched and 
smote his heavy chest. Then his hands 
dropped to his hips and his head tilted 
upward. Roars of laughter burst from 
his lips. 

"Wonderful ! Greg, you must accept 
my thanks. And Jan, you acted su- 
perbly. How could vou resist joining 
us?" 

"When there is not enough for one, 
should two divide?" Jan's eyes twin- 
kled. "Should the occasion arise, I shall 
expect the same of you. Urg is al- 
ready at work?" 

"Yes. Urg was very sportsmanlike. 
He saw he was not needed and took 
charge of the ship immediately. But he 
did take four of the Americans from 
me. He said he will need them to man 
his ship." 

Greg leaned against the wall. He 
fought the searing pain in his side and 
tried to listen to what the Saturnians 
were saying. But his eyes kept wan- 
dering. 

Bright flashes appeared and reap- 
peared among the spaceships of the pi- 
rates. Monstrous, soundless explosions 
lighted the void. Luminous beams 
swung through the blackness, followed 
the twisting hulls of gigantic air cruisers. 
Myriads of colored lights danced 
through space. 

"Fellows," he said, weakly, "you've 
been great. But we're still in the fire. 
The pirates are out there — they're doing 
things. We've got to get word " 

"Forgive me, Greg." Bak lifted him 
as though he were a child. He pulled a 
long table to the center of the room and 
laid Fennel upon it. "I'd forgotten you 
were wounded. As for the pirates, they 
are well taken care of." 

"What are you talking about ?" Greg 



struggled to sit up. "We haven't had 
a chance to send a warning !" 

Bak straightened. He folded his arms 
across his chest and looked stern. 

"Fennel, I want you to lie down while 
I treat your wound. Are you going to 
do so, or must I get rough?" 

"No." Greg solemnly shook his head. 
"I saw you get rough, Bale. I'll lie 
down." 

"Now," Jan handed Bak a Venusian 
first-aid kit and turned to Greg, "I'll tell 
you what happened." He parted the 
thick hair on his chest and exposed a 
bright metal disc. "An ether micro- 
phone," he explained. He folded his 
ear back. Another disc, somewhat 
smaller, had been concealed there. "A 
receiver. We have never been out of 
communication with Saturn since we left 
our planet." 

BAK OPENED Fennel's shirt and 
his long, powerful fingers explored the 
ugly gash. Greg winced with the pain 
of it. Jan said, "He's not an ape!" and 
Bak grinned sheepishly. He smeared a 
thick salve along the wound. Before 
he had begun to apply the bandages, the 
pain had almost disappeared. Jan con- 
tinued. 

"Our people were informed of every 
move we and the pirates made. Our 
spaceships reached the Asteroids first 
and waited for our signal to begin the 
attack. By this time, the pirate ships 
are all either destroyed or captured. 

"We told Harg, of the Interplanetary 
Espionage, about the base on Mars and 
the restaurant in New York. He prom- 
ised to take care of both. Earth was 
notified, and their air fleet left at once 
to surround Venus. We purposely al- 
lowed the Venusian fleet and that of the 
Martian Pirates to come here that our 
people might establish themselves as 
worthy planetarians by capturing them. 
Do you forgive us, Greg?" 

"Forgive you? Lord, Jan, there's 



ASTEROID PIRATES 



123 



nothing to forgive. I want to thank 
you !" 

Bak pressed the last strip of adhesive 
tape in place and helped Greg to his 
feet. Greg felt no pain but was stiff and 
weak. He pointed to a case of Martian 
wine and said, "Let's celebrate." Jan 
placed a bottle and three glasses on the 
table. 

Somebody said, "Another glass, 
please," and Urg entered the compart- 
ment. 

"A wonderful victory," he told them. 
"The Martian government smashed the 
base on their planet and the Venusians 
are already suing Earth for peace. Our 
fleet," his voice vibrated with pride, "had 
no trouble here." 

"A fleet under your command will 
never have trouble, Urg," Jan spoke 
softly, then turned to Greg. "Urg is 
admiral of the combined war fleets of 
Saturn." 

Fennel gaped as Urg bowed. He mut- 
tered, "Holy mackerel!" but Urg only 
smiled. 

"I'm only a lesser light, Greg. Jan 
is president of the United Nations of 
Saturn, and Bak is our trouble-loving 
army commander." 

Jan laughed. "It would come out. 
Now that you know, Greg, won't you 
accompany us to Saturn? Our planet 
has never been explored by a planetarian, 
and we will give you full rights to re- 



port actual conditions there to the whole 
Solar System." 

"And I'll take you around!" Bait's 
eyes glistened. "In state, Greg. See 
everything — do anything. Think of 
your paper !" 

Greg was thinking of it. Revealing 
the mysteries of Saturn would make 
him the greatest figure in the news 
world. Not on Earth — in the whole 
System ! His ten-minute column would 
be stretched to a half hour — an hour ! 
His salary ? Hell ! In a month he could 
retire with more money than he could 
ever throw away. Man, what a break! 

One of the Americans cautiously 
stuck his head in the doorway and held 
out a sheet of paper. "Ether message 
for Greg Fennel," he explained. Greg 
took the message and read it slowly. 

"You are accepted as a member of In- 
terplanetary Espionage. Report to Harg 
at Gorgas, Mars, immediately. Trans- 
portation arranged to Diemos, where 
you will investigate deaths of four 
planetarians in Diemotian iron mines. 
Your number 11-38-962. Signed, Paul 
Dunning, Chief. Interplanetary Espion- 
age." 

Greg's eyes swam. He looked at the 
three Saturnians, saw their pleased grins 
give way to puzzled disappointment. 
Then his shoulders squared. 

"Sorry, fellows. That trip will have 
to wait. I've got me a job !" 



The September 

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 

closes FIVE YEARS of 
STREET & SMITH ASTOUNDINC 
DON'T MISS IT! 



124 



IN TIMES TO COME 



NEXT month's issue closes five full years of Street & Smith's management of 
Astounding. That issue is going to typify the five years of work and advance- 
ment Astounding — and science-fiction — have undergone since the Street & Smith 
Astounding first appeared in September, 1933. Manly Wade Wellman's Treasure 
Asteroid appears on the cover — and that cover is by Thomson. That typifies our 
effort to find new, good cover artists. 

There is one of Ray Cummings' best short stories — Xl-2-200 — to represent the 
best of the old. Kent Casey, a new author who has already established himself as a 

top-notcher represents the best of the new. He's there with The Ceres Affair 

returning John West and the irrepressible if slightly irrational Dr. von Theil. 

And Eddin Clark represents two new policies: he's a new author who has never 
before appeared, and his yarn Double! Double! represents one of the most completely, 
delightfully batty, yet biologically sound yarns I've ever enjoyed. For those who 
like their science-fiction strait-laced and grim-faced — no. But for those who en- 
joyed Anachronistic Optics, Flareback, Hyperpelosity and Good Old Brig! — yes, by 
all means. For them, Eddin Clark is a find. 

Finally, we start a new serial, The Tramp, by L. Ron Hubbard. And that repre- 
sents, for Astounding, the effort to get the best stories of the science-fiction type by 
the best authors available. It's a three-part story of an utterly insignificant little 
tramp, a shiftless no-account who was kicked off a box-car, to fall on his head. He 
woke, still insignificant, still timorous, still dull-witted as ever. But he'd gained a 
terrible power, and then someone with an embittered, keener mind took him in hand, 
led him, pushed him, to a mad domination of the country. By the power of his eyes! 

The Editor 





THE ANALYTICAL LABORATORY 


1. 


Men Against the Stars 


Manly Wade Wellman 


2. 


Seeds of the Dusk 


Raymond Z. Callun 


3. 


Isle of the Golden Swarm 


Norman L. Knight 


4. 


Legion of Time 


Jack Williamson 


5. 


Three Thousand Years! 


Thomas Calvert McCIary 



Second only to Men Against the Stars in reader approval was the astronomical 
cover. Men Against the Stars led all other stories by 28% — the cover, however, 
trailed it by only 10%. 

ABOVE, we present the Analytical Laboratory, Below, something new. Astound- 
ing has been running this Laboratory department for several months now. You've 
analyzed the authors and their stories. Now they want an about-face. They want a 
chance to analyze you so that they may know better your likes and dislikes, the type 
of experience the people they write for have had. 

This is a research data sheet. We'd like to have you express yourself freely and 
honestly. This is, after all, an analytical laboratory, and exact results depend upon 
your answers. 

Please clip and mail before August 1, 1938 — 

Editor, Astounding Science-Fiction 
79 Seventh Ave., New York City. 

State of residence Occupation 

Rural or City Surroundings? Age Group 

IS 20 25 30 35 40 and over 

Numbering the stories in order of preference, I rate them: 

1 4 

2 5 

$ 6 • 



Orbits, Take 



125 






An authoritative article on the actual maneuvering 
possibilities and necessities of rocket-ships — and the 
neglected First Law of Rocketry — 

by Willy Ley 



WHILE actual rocket experi- 
mentation is struggling along, 
irked and delayed by little mis- 
haps like valve troubles, melting com- 
bustion chambers or just plain lack of 
funds, science-fiction authors find no 
difficulties in having their space liners 
run freely from Mars to Jupiter and 
from Earth to Mercury. Thus far things 
are all right ; it is the duty of science- 
fiction to point out what might be. 

However, our science-fiction authors 
should not point out what cannot be 
without saying so. In the case of space- 
ships, many readers — and even a good 
many of the authors — seem to think that 
spaceships, if they were only in ex- 
istence, could navigate the void as easily 
and as voluntarily as the Atlantic Ocean 
is navigated by the Queen Mary, the 
Normandie and the Bremen. 

If the villain who stole the Martian 
princess cannot be found on Vesta, the 
hero heads his good — although some- 
what scarred and battered — ship straight 
for Venus, where the villain probably is 
hiding. This may sound reasonable in 
the story — if it is a good yarn at all — 
but it would be simply impossible in 
reality. 

Spaceships cannot travel in straight 
lines ! 

This sentence might be called the First 
Law of Interplanetary Travel. It dif- 
fers from ordinary long-distance travel 
not only by the magnitude of distance 



and by the means of transportation. 

The "law" that spaceships cannot 
travel in straight lines is valid no matter 
what distance is to be traversed. But it 
works only for self-respecting spaceships 
propelled by a drive based on the princi- 
ple of action and reaction as stated by 
Sir Isaac Newton. It does not hold 
true for "big tear-drops" with Bergen- 
holms and inertialess drive. They might 
do anything and do it in stories. But 
spaceships of "normal" design — space- 
ships as they are now visualized by the 
more imaginative among rocket enthusi- 
asts — are bound to obey certain natural 
laws, laws that are firmly established 
and can be checked at any time by any 
telescopic measurement. 

To understand the underlying princi- 
ples of space flight one has to begin with 
elementary facts. ' Any spaceship, 
whether it was built in an honest fac- 
tory on Earth or by some scheming 
alien entity on another planet, has fo 
start its journey from some planet — i. e., 
from a moving base. Thus it happens 
that its velocity in space — with reference 
to the center of the Sun which might be 
assumed immovable — is determined by 
at least two factors : the orbital speed of 
the planet, and the speed of the ship 
herself. 

Usually, the speed of the surface of 
the planet at the point of departure (due 
to the daily rotation around the axis) 
will introduce a third, and oftentimes 



126 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



disturbing factor. This might be elimi- 
nated by taking off from a pole, but 
although such a maneuver might make 
calculations easier, it might not be de- 
sirable in actuality as we will see later. 

To simplify the problem, let us as- 
sume first that the whole planet has to 
be propellcd through space, and that we 
undertake to do it with our own planet, 
Earth. Disregarding the difficulties aris- 
ing from the daily rotation we then have 
the following situation: 

The Earth travels in its almost-circu- 
lar orbit around the Sun at a speed of 
29.7 kilometers per second. This speed 
is just sufficient to create enough centrif- 
ugal force to counterbalance the Sun's 
attraction at the actual distance from the 
Sun. Inside the orbit of Earth travels 
Venus — naturally with a higher orbital 
speed, since it is nearer to the Sun and 
has more gravitational attraction to 
counterbalance. Mars travels outside the 
orbit of Earth around the Sun, its speed 
is less than that of Earth. The follow- 
ing table shows the orbital speeds of the 
major planets: it is easy to see how it 
diminishes with the distance from the 
Sun. 

LET US imagine that some force 
suddenly reduced the orbital speed of 
the Earth. It would not jump into the 
orbit of Mars or of Jupiter as might 
be thought. On the contrary. The 
Earth would start falling toward the 
Sun. If Earth's orbital speed were in- 





Mean distance 




in million 


Name 


kilometers 


Mercury 


58 


Venus 


108 


Earth 


U9yi 


Mars 


227 


Jupiter 


777 


Saturn 


1,424 


Uranus 


2,864 


Neptune 


4,487 



stantancously reduced to zero it would 
fall into the Sun in a straight line. This 
would not even be deplorable, since the 
sudden stop would have changed the 
planet into a mass of flaming wreckage 
anyway. If, however, even a little 
orbital velocity were left, the planet 
would not fall directly into the Sun. It 
would move in an elliptical orbit, deter- 
mined by solar attraction and the re- 
mainder of orbital speed. The Earth's 
orbit would change from a near-circle 
to a long-drawn-out ellipse, with a peri- 
helion close to the Sun. To the living 
beings on Earth, from amoeba to man, 
such a change of orbit might be ca- 
tastrophic, but the planet itself would 
survive it. • 

If the orbital speed were reduced only 
about ten per cent, the Earth would 
start falling toward the Sun. It would 
spiral nearer to the central luminary, 
but while approaching the Sun, its speed 
would increase like that of a falling 
stone, until a point and a speed were 
reached that reestablished an equilibrium 
of some new order. After some time, 
the planet would again have a stable 
orbit around the Sun — not the same as 
before, but equally stable. 

If the orbital speed of the planet were 
increased, the opposite effect would take 
place. The planet would begin to spiral 
away from the Sun, using up energy 
while doing so, and more and more de- 
creasing its speed. As the upward mo- 
tion of a thrown stone comes finally to a 



Time of 


Orbital speed 


complete 


in kilometers 


revolution 


per second 


88 days 


48.1 


225 " 


35.2 


365.2 " 


29.7 


687 " 


25.9 


12 years 


13.1 


29*/ 2 " 


9.67 


84 " 


6.84 


165 " 


5.46 



ORBITS, TAKE-OFFS AND LANDINGS 



127 



stop, the outward motion of the Earth 
would come to a stop after a while. 
Equilibrium would be reestablished, the 
planet would have a new orbit outside 
its former orbit and with smaller orbital 
velocity. It may sound surprising, at 
first, that an increase of orbital speed 
would result in an orbit with lesser or- 
bital speed, but it is nevertheless true. 

What can be done to the whole 
planet in theory can be done to a part 
of it in practice — if we are "skilled in 
the art." When we fire a gun vertically 
at dusk or at dawn the shell — as seen 
from the Sun — undergoes a change of 
orbital speed, either an increase or a de- 
crease. If the difference were only large 
enough, the shell might travel to the 
orbit of Mars (if its own speed added 
itself to the orbital speed of Earth) or 
to the orbit of Venus (if its speed sub- 
tracted itself). And if the shot was 
rightly timed — i. e., if the shell needed 
the same time to travel the distance be- 
tween the orbits as the moving targets 
of the planets needed to arrive at the 
meeting place — the shell might even fall 
upon one of these planets. 

We know nowadays — Ziolkovsky, 
Oberth, Goddard and a lot of others 
taught us that — that rockets are better 
suited to obtain high velocities than 
shells. Therefore spaceships and 
rocket-ships have justly become synon- 
ymous, although one might imagine a 
spaceship that is not a rocket-ship, and 
one can certainly imagine a rocket-ship 
that is not a spaceship. 

Although some may try to imagine a 
spaceship that is not a rocket-ship, the 
only means to conquer space we know 
of is by rockets. For this reason alone 
the theory of interplanetary travel 
should be based upon the laws of rocket 
motion. The first scientific calculation 
of this kind — made around the year 1900 
by the Russian school teacher Konstan- 
tin E. Ziolkovsky — concerned a flight 
to the Moon — just the one case that 
happens to be an exception from the 




Impossible and possible orbits to Venus. 
Orbit I is impossible, since when the ship 
reached Venus, planet and rocket would 
be moving in opposite directions. For 
landing, then, fuel would be needed to 
halt the rocket's motion, then reverse it, 
and bring it up to Venus' velocity. Or- 
bit II is possible since rocket and planet 
would meet traveling in the same direc- 
tion at nearly equivalent speeds. 

general rule ! Afterwards, the matter 
rested uninvestigated until in 1925 one 
of the construction engineers of the city 
of Essen (Germany), Dr. Walter Hoh- 
mann, published a treatise that was de- 
voted almost exclusively to the orbits of 
spaceships. Dr. Hohmann did not treat 
problems of construction or operation 
in his book ; he merely stated his faith in 
the rocket principle. Then he concen- 
trated his attention upon the astronom- 
ical aspects of interplanetary travel. One 
of the first things that occurred to him 
was the realization that our Solar Sys- 
tem is fairly well suited for interplan- 
etary travel. All of its planets, and prac- 
tically all of its moons, circle the Sun 
in very nearly the same plane. And — 
which is even more important — all the 
planets and the vast majority ef the 
moons travel in the same direction. 

If either of these facts were different 
the hopes for interplanetary flights 
would have been destined to remain 
hopes. One could never hope to land 



128 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



on a planet "Mars II" that traveled in 
its orbit just as real Mars does, but in 
the opposite direction. One could 
hardly hope to reach a "Venus II" trav- 
eling in an orbit the plane of which 
formed an angle of 90° with the plane 
of the orbit of Earth. This is true be- 
cause one cannot steer in space as one 
can on Earth. On Earth, if an airplane 
wishes to change its direction 180° — to 
turn around completely — no power need 
be expended. The fins are set at an 
angle, and the necessary force is ob- 
tained by reaction with the air. In 
space, fuel must be burned whenever a 
change in direction is made. To turn 
through 180°, as would be necessary to 
reach "Mars II," fuel enough would be 
needed to overcome Earth's orbital 
speed, plus fuel to match the orbital 
speed of "Mars II," plus the fuel 
needed to climb out the 50,000,000 miles 
or so against solar gravity. To reach 
our hypothetical "Venus II," a turn in 
direction of 90° must be made. Curi- 
ously, the spaceship which cannot travel 
in a straight line, cannot curve its course 
by its own volition cither! Or, at least, 
cannot economically do so. 

Things being as they are, interplan- 
etary travel is within the bounds of rea- 
son. The problem becomes solvable if 
powerful rocket motors and applied 
astronomical mathematics are used as 
tools. Now, in 1938, it remains to build 
better rocket motors. They are still too 
heavy and do not last long enough. 

TO DEMONSTRATE the problems 
in question as simply as possible, Hoh- 
mann divided interplanetary trips into 
several parts. Part One was the de- 
parture from Earth, Part Two the at- 
tainment of the proper orbit, Part Three 
the correction of the orbit and Part 
Four the landing on the planet. An 
example of this method of division might 
be interesting. 

If the ship is bound for Mars, it has 
to increase the speed it has with refer- 



ence to the Sun as part of the Earth. 
Hohmann wanted it to take off from the 
planet in the general direction of the 
Sun and to attain a distance of about 
800,000 kilometers from the center of 
the Earth. Although this distance is 
small as astronomical distances go, it 
would practically eliminate the attrac- 
tion of the Earth. Hohmann wanted the 
ship to go sunward first only for the 
purpose of having the planet (Earth) 
always fully illuminated so that mistakes 
might be easily checked. According to 
Dr. Hohmann's calculations, the distance 
mentioned would be attained in about 15 
days. At the end of this time it would 
have separated from the Earth, but seen 
from the Sun it would still travel with 
the orbital speed of Earth. In short, 
the ship would be a small part of the 
planet, separate and independent, but 
still behaving exactly like the planet it- 
self. 

After this is accomplished, the rocket 
motors would have to resume work to 
"disturb" the orbit in such a way that 
the new orbit that would be created 
would extend between the orbits of 
Earth and Mars. It would be an ellipse 
of fairly high eccentricity, just touching 
both orbits on either end, but not cross- 
ing them. A few days later, some cor- 
rections of the orbit might have to be 
made, and then there would be no work 
left for the pilot except waiting till the 
orbit of Mars is reached. If the ship 
departed at the right time, Mars would 
be due at a selected point of its orbit 
such as to meet the spaceship and catch 
it in its gravitational field. Then, laud- 
ing would follow. 

Expressed in figures of velocity, the 
whole operation looks as follows: The 
ship has to attain a speed of 12 — 14 
kilometers per second to climb to a 
distance of 800,000 kilometers, and leave 
the gravitational field of Earth 1 . For the 

>) The ship Is still in the gravitational field of 
Earth, of course, if we understand the term 
strictly. But at this distance the Influence u 
so foeule that it can be safely disregarded. 



ORBITS, TAKE-OFFS AND LANDINGS 



129 



change of orbits, another 3000 meters 
per second are needed; for the correc- 
tion, exactly 320 meters per second. To- 
gether, 15,320 — 17,320 meters per sec- 
ond. The uncertainty is due to the un- 
known factors of air resistance. It might 
be well to mention that the time the 
rocket motors are in operation during 
this trip is ridiculously small. The first 
and greatest change of speed does not 
take more than about eight minutes if 
undergone with an acceleration of about 
four gravities. All in all, the rocket 
motors will have to work for a little 
over ten minutes from the moment of 
the take-off from Earth until the ship 
is ready to go into landing maneuvers 
for landing on Mars. 

Dr. Hohmann's method of calculation 
has been both praised and criticized by 
other authors, notably by Professor. Her- 
mann Oberth and Count Guido von Pir- 
quet. They praised it for its pioneering 
value and for its simplicity ; criticized 
it because it is not the optimal solution 
of the problem. Professor Oberth's im- 
provement of the method has been 
termed "the problem of condensation of 
powered flight". It is true that firing 
the rockets three times looks a little 
amateurish if the three necessary changes 
in velocity can be attained in one sweep. 
It is also true that a considerable amount 
of fuel can be saved if all necessary 
speed changes are compressed into one 
operation. The reason for this saving 
has to be sought mainly in the fact that 
the rocket motors would work with 
lower efficiency in the second and third 
firing because of the lower speed of the 
ship. If all three changes are accom- 
plished together, the ship has generally 
a higher speed and therefore the rocket 
motors have a higher efficiency. 

As a matter of fact, Hohmann men- 
tioned later that he is in favor of con- 
densing the period of powered flight 
himself. There are cases, however, 
where it would be advisable not to con- 
dense, because several periods of firing 



would prove advantageous. Such a case 
would present itself if the ship had to 
leave one of the moons of Jupiter. Ju- 
piter's bulk could be used to assist the 
rocket motors of the ship. Departing 
from the moon would not need an ex- 
cessive amount of fuel. Then the ship 
would fall in the general direction of 
Jupiter and thereby increase the speed. 
At a certain instant, the rocket motors 
would have to force the ship into the 
right orbit. Just when this change has 
to be made will vary from case to case, 
and will be the main worry of the pilot 
who is unfortunate enough to be as- 
signed to the plotting of such a course. 

TO CONTINUE with the discussion 
of those orbits that are the rule and not 
the exception, it may be said that sub- 
stituting Oberth's for Hohmann's 
method changes neither the appearance 
nor the underlying principles of flight. 
It is only a more "professional" way of 
accomplishing the same thing. 

The time needed for a flight to Mars 
in what Hohmann calls his "Orbit A" 




Typical Hohmann A Orbit from Earth to 
Venus. This type of curve represents the 
Eight-plan to be followed for minimum 
fuel consumption in interplanetary Bight. 
The curve represents one half of the 
orbit an asteroid circling the Sun in such 
a way as to just graze both Earth's and 
Venus' orbits would follow. 



130 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 




!' EARTH 




The curious 5 -shaped orbit-curve for the 
most efficient Earth-Moon flight. Curi- 
ously, rocket-Bight demands the most 
powerful motors known to man — yet 
rocket-Sight is almost 100% unpowered 
Sight! Like the glider, to be efHcieni, 
the rocket must travel on the interplanet- 
ary "winds" of space — gravitational force. 

would be 258 days, but a round trip 
could not be made in twice that num- 
ber of days. It would take much 
longer. 

In speaking about interplanetary trips 
in the literal sense of the word — trips 
between two planets and not trips be- 
tween a planet and its moons — one has 
always to remember that there exist two 
basically different types of orbits. Those 
we discussed up to this point are orbits 
obtained by changing the orbital velocity 
relative to the Sun. These "A orbits" 
are the ones most easy to accomplish if 
judged under consideration of minimum 
fuel consumption. The B, C, D, etc., 
orbits are obtained with changes of or- 



bital speed and direction. Since all 
orbits are elliptical — although only part 
of the ellipse is actually traveled — one 
can also say that an ellipse that touches 
the orbits of the planets of departure and 
of arrival is an A orbit, while an ellipse 
that crosses the orbits of the planets of 
departure and of arrival belongs to one 
of the other classes. 

The A orbits are inexpensive, but 
take a long time. Furthermore, they 
cannot be traveled at any time desired. 
A trip to Venus in an A orbit takes 146 
days. Provided that the ship look off 
from Earth 146 days before Venus ar- 
rived at the meeting place, the planet 
will be reached in this time. The rocket- 
ship would then have traveled exactly 
one half of the ellipse. (This is, inci- 
dentally, another peculiarity of A orbits. 
Always half of the full orbit is traveled 
while the parts of all other orbits trav- 
eled constitute much smaller fractions.) 
But if we assume that the travelers have 
meanwhile decided not to visit Venus, 
they could not just drift on. The other 
half of their orbit would carry them back 
without any fuel expenditure to the orbit 
of Earth all right — but mother Earth 




The Hohmann Orbits A. B, C. D, and E. 
While C is the shortest and fastest orbit, 
the accompanying table shows that it re- 
quires an unmanageable amount of fuel. 



ORBITS, TAKE-OFFS AND LANDINGS 



131 



would be somewhere else. The space 
navigators would have to stay near Ve- 
nus for a considerable length of time 
until the other half of the orbit "fits" 
again. In the case of a trip to Venus, 
the time of waiting would be 470 days, 
so that the entire trip would take 146 
plus 470 plus 146 = 762 days. The trip 
to Mars and back would take 258 plus 
455 plus 258 == 971 days. Curiously 
enough, the trip to Mercury would take 
a much shorter time, due to the high 
orbital speed and short orbit of the small- 
est planet. The figures read 105 plus 67 
plus 105 = 277 days. A trip to Jupiter 
would take 2207 days; 997 for each 
crossing and 213 days' stay. But both 
of these trips look impossible now be- 
cause of their tremendous fuel expendi- 
ture. 

Before Dr. Hohmann computed the 
A orbits, he made a comparison of five 
possible orbits. Assuming that the space- 
ship's own weight after exhaustion of 
all of the fuel on board would be as 
low as six tons, he found the following 




The "survey-round-trip" orbits making 
grazing contact with Mars, Venus, Mer- 
cury, and Earth in a little more than iy 2 
Earth-years. It is compounded of A or- 
bits for Earth-Mars, Mars-Mercury, and 
Mercury-Earth. By proper choice of 
season, the orbit can be made to pass near 
Venus en route. 

AST— 9 




I 

Orbit-curves for landing on a planet hav- 
ing an atmosphere. Nearly all the energy 
to be dissipated by the rocket is absorbed 
by the planetary atmosphere, with a mini- 
mum expenditure of fuel. 

figures for the weights of the ships at 
the moment of departure: 

With an exhaust km/ 
velocity oi 3 4 5 10 sec. 



On orbit A 49 34 27 18 tons i 

B 530 200 104 31 " 

C 5900 1060 417 60 " 

D 141 70 48 22 " 

E 172 83 55 24 " 

It is evident that the shorter orbits 1 
B, C, D, and E. remain impossibilities , 
until fuels of very high exhaust velocities | 
are found or made. Nothing hinders us, 
however, from having spaceships before 
that time. Even if more powerful fuels 
are available, space flight will probably 
start with A orbits, and if a prophecy as 



132 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 




Oberth's "Curve of Synergy", a compro- 
mise between atmospheric resistance, 
planetary rotation, and the necessity of 
getting the rocket to a high speed as 
quickly as possible. 



to the first A orbit actually traveled must 
be made. I should say that it will be the 
one leading to Eros. Before this, the 
Moon will probably have been reached, 
on a particularly uninteresting route 
that looks like a long drawn-out S rather 
like the integral symbol J". 

SHORTENING the time needed for 
a trip to, say, Mars, is possible even 
with A orbits under condition of not 
landing on the other planet. The wait- 
ing time can be saved with a fairly low 
additional fuel expenditure in combin- 
ing a number of A orbits. Dr. Hoh- 
mann worked it out once, mainly to see 
what results he would obtain. He was 
much surprised to discover that a round 
trip to Mars could be made in about 510 
days instead of 971 days. The ship 
would have to run in an A orbit to Mars 
first, observing the planet at close quar- 
ters for several weeks. Then it would 
change into another A orbit with a peri- 
helion inside the orbit of Venus. At the 
perihelion, another change would be 
made to come into another A orbit lead- 
ing back to the orbit of Earth, and to 
Earth itself. Since the perihelion can 
be pushed even closer to the Sun with- 
out loss of time so that the orbit of Mer- 
cury is touched, the travelers will be 
able to see Mars, Mercury and, prob- 
ably, Venus at close quarters. And this 
"survey round trip," as the Germans call 
it, would not take much longer than 1J4 
years. 

That the spaceship would not land 
on Earth as straight as a homing pigeon 



lands on its roof goes almost without 
saying. Professor Hermann Oberth, in 
his very first publication, devoted much 
time and space to prove that this cannot 
be done. 

"Naturally," he wrote, "manned space 
rockets are not supposed to descend to 
Earth in a straight line, because of the 
comparative shortness of the distance 
where the air is dense enough to brake 
the fall. Since a manned rocket has 
some sideward motion at any event, 
especially when the departure did not 
take place vertically, the rocket ap- 
proaches Earth on a curve of the second 
order that can easily be influenced in 
such a way that the point nearest (the 
surface of) Earth is situated in the upper 
atmosphere of the planet. Even if we 
assume that the layer where the para- 
chute can be safely and effectively used 
is not thicker than 4-5 miles (higher 
up the air is too thin, farther below the 
health of the passengers will be en- 
dangered by too rapid deceleration), and 
even if the rocket approaches Earth in a 
parabolic orbit the 'braking way' is 
more than 800 kilometers long (840 
km.). The result of using the para- 
chute during every meter of this long 
way does not have to amount to more 
than to reduce parabolic to elliptical ve- 
locity. If this happens, the rocket 
would approach Earth again at about 
the same point, and again travel through 
the atmosphere. This time the 'braking 
way' would be longer because the ellip- 
tical orbit would be less eccentric, i. e., 
more similar to a circle. The point 
closest to the surface of the Earth would, 
however, not be much nearer to the sur- 
face than before. This would be re- 
peated until circular velocity is obtained. 
Then the 'braking way' would become 
indefinitely long, and the rocket would 
land in a spiral as long as desired." 

The whole maneuver will take about 
24 hours, maybe less. There is no 
doubt that it does not look very con- 
venient, and that a landing on flaming 



ORBITS, TAKE-OFFS AND LANDINGS 



133 



rocket jets would look much nicer. But 
if we consider that reducing a speed of 
12 or 14 kilometers per second to zero 
takes as much fuel as attaining such 
speed, and if we remember that the fuel 
needed for this maneuver has to be car- 
ried along through all other maneuvers 
— right from the take-off — we do not 
mind a series of circumnavigations so 
much. 

THERE IS one thing left to discuss : 
the take-off. One should think that at 
least this will be done in a fairly straight 
line, if for no other reason than to pene- 
trate the densest layers of the atmos- 
phere quickly. As far as these densest 
layers are concerned, this argument 
actually holds true. But the take-off of 
a spaceship (and of any other large 
rocket) will most probably not be made 
from the surface of a large lake or even 
the sea, as one often reads in foreign 
publications about space travel. 

Calculations published by Ley and 
^Schaefer in VAcrophile (Paris, October 
issue, 1936) have shown that a given 
rocket, which would attain an altitude of 
26 kilometers if launched from a point 
at or near sea-level, would reach much 
higher altitudes if launched from the 
top of a high mountain. If the moun- 
tain be four kilometers high, the total 
altitude attained would be 43.4 kilo- 
meters (instead of 26 plus 4) ; if the 
mountain be five kilometers high, the 
total altitude would even be 48.7 kilo- 
meters. These figures prove how im- 
portant air resistance is, and how much 
especially the first few miles of at- 
mosphere decrease the speed of a rocket. 
It will be wise, therefore, to take oft" 
from the top of a high mountain. 

Oberth has shown that a vertical take- 
off is not at all satisfactory if fuel ex- 
penditure is taken into consideration. 
If the Earth were an airless planet, one 
should take off at a very small angle, 
practically parallel to its surface. Since 
Earth has an atmosphere, one is forced 



to travel the first ten or fifteen 
miles practically vertical in order to 
penetrate the densest layers of the at- 
mosphere as quickly as possible. But 
then one can start to tilt the orbit of de- 
parture until it finally runs parallel with 
the surface of the planet, although far 
enough from it not to be handicapped by 
atmospheric friction. Professor Oberth 
carefully computed the optimal curve of 
ascent which gives the highest results at 
lowest cost and termed it the "curve of 
synergy." 

Thus we have for the take-off a 
"curve of synergy," starting from the 
top of a high mountain. Is there still an 
advantage to be gained in choosing a 
special geographical location for this 
mountain, and in facing the curve of 
synergy in a certain direction? There 
is another gain possible; the speed of 
the Earth's rotation. If the curve of 
synergy faces toward east, the speed of 
Earth's rotation is with the ship and 
not against it as it would be if the 
curve faced west. And since the speed 
of rotation is highest at the equator — 
some 500 yards per second — the moun- 
tain should be located in the very midst 
of the tropical zone. 

Strangely enough, there is actually a 
mountain in existence that fulfills most 
of the conditions for an ideal spaceport. 
It is Mt. Kenya in Central Africa, situa- 
ated directly at the equator, more than 
three miles high, and surrounded by 
territory that would present no unsur- 
mountable difficulties for the construc- 
tion of several large airports. Since 
Mt. Kenya has generally gentle slopes, 
it would not even be difficult to build 
railways all the way from the airports 
near its foot to a possible spaceport on 
its top. 

It would be strange if the first space- 
ships would take advantage of these op- 
portunities and ascend from Mt. Kenya 
— the most modern product of civiliza- 
tion being launched from the very heart 
of the least civilized continent! 



134 



Eviction by Isotherm 

by Malcolm Jameson 

A new author shows that the weatherman isn't always 
wrong — and that he can be a bad man to argue with! 



NEW YEAR'S EVE! Over the 
world people abandoned them- 
selves to sheer joy at the release 
from the intolerable strain of the past 
two decades. For this was not the dy- 
ing of a hateful year only, but of an un- 
speakably ghastly century — a century 
whose final years had been one awful 
crescendo of slaughter and destruction. 
Men and women crawled from their sub- 
terranean shelters and mingled gayly 
among the wreckage of their cities. In 
their hilarity they did not see, or pre- 
tended not to notice, the ineradicable 
lines of ingrained fear etched on every 
countenance. Fear generated and fed 
by the deluges of Feroxite bombs, of 
incinerating heat rays, of bromine clouds, 
and of the horrible neurona^mia germs. 

For on this morning, the last day of 
the Twentiedi Century, a lean, silvery 
cruiser of Panamericana, one of the few 
survivors of what had been an impressive 
fleet of many thousands, had dropped 
down on Teneriffe from the strato- 
sphere to meet peacefully the squat, cup- 
shaped aerial flagship of the Eurasiatics, 
itself a remnant of a once fearsome 
horde. Even the grasping and ruthless 
rulers of Eurasiatica had recognized that 
unless this war was halted, there would 
be no human race to enjoy its victory. 
In spite of vastly greater numbers, they 
had been held to a costly draw by the 
Panamericans through the latter's adroit 
use of the miracles of applied science. 
The war was a stale-mate. For years 
now, it had been a suicidal deadlock — 
a stupidly continued mutual destruction 



of peoples already ruined and exhausted. 
The armistice, bringing a pause in the 
useless carnage, was signed at high noon. 
By nightfall the world knew and re- 
joiced. 

But not all gave themselves over to 
unthinking celebration. In an inner 
chamber of the North Regional admin- 
istration building in the Idaho Rockies, 
the supreme directors of Panamericana 
affixed their ratification to the ten-year 
armistice proposal in gloomy silence. 
The Secretary had hardly left the cham- 
ber to broadcast the news to a jubilant 
hemisphere, when the Chief Commis- 
sioner gravely voiced the thought that 
was in every mind present. 

"Ten years!" he said, slowly and dis- 
tinctly, gripping the table's edge until 
his knuckles nearly burst their skins, 
"then the beginning of the end ! Gen- 
tlemen, what we have negotiated is a 
breathing spell — the lull before the last 
act in the tragedy of our race. Do not 
deceive yourselves. There can be no 
peace with an organization dominated 
by the Neo-Aryans. In 1957 we signed 
a treaty guaranteeing to us the freedom 
of the Americas, for which we resigned 
all our other interests in the world. Yet 
four years later they attempted our con- 
quest. Again, in '75, we made still other 
agreements. You all know how worth- 
less those assurances were, and how use- 
less our subsequent concessions. Even 
today, as they offer us this armistice, 
I learn that they are developing newer 
and more hideous weapons and that pro- 
duction has already begun in their for- 



EVICTION BY ISOTHERM 



135 



tress-laboratory in the mountains of 
Scandinavia. Their readiness for a truce 
is explained ; they want these ten years 
to perfect their machines for one irre- 
sistible push. We must, whatever our 
preference, be ready to meet it. I tell 
you now, that when this armistice ex- 
pires, we will be faced with but one 
choice — exterminate or be extermi- 
nated !" 



Dr. Barnes, bearded and spectacled, 
the Coordinator of Sciences, arose. 

"Gentlemen," lie said quietly, "what 
the Chief Commissioner has just said 
is true. But it is true only so long as 
present conditions remain unaltered. It 
is within our power to alter them. I 
cannot agree that it is necessary to ex- 
terminate the Eurasiatics to secure a 
lasting peace. We need only destroy 




Dr. Barnes looked toward the falling bomb. "That," he said sadly, "was 
a strategic blunder on their part, though they don't realize it. You can 
start the injectors. And — ah — predict colder, with snow." 



136 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



the breeding place of the pernicious ideas 
of conquest. Let us. at one stroke, ren- 
der Europe uninhabitable. Then we 
may hope to negotiate a real peace with 
the rest of mankind." 

THE MEMBERS of the council sat 
looking at Dr. Barnes, puzzled at the 
unexpected speech. He continued, his 
eyes blazing as he warmed to his theme. 

"As man to man, none of us has 
any quarrel with the European. You — I 
— all of us — are but transplanted Euro- 
peans. The European outside of Eu- 
rope is not a predatory creature, not 
even quarrelsome. In the building of 
the old United States we saw millions 
of them of every Old World creed and 
nationality live and work peaceably to- 
gether. Our race today is a blend of 
them. Yet all the while their cousins 
across the water were butchering each 
other on account of age-old prejudices. 
Every one of the important old-time 
capitals of Europe is haunted by the 
memory of a day when it almost ruled 
the world, and the ruler who sits in one 
of those thrones sooner or later acquires 
the obsession that he, too, is destined to 
control a great empire. My contention 
is that that evil heritage is local, not 
racial. We must deal with a ghost, not 
a people, a megalomania rising from 
the blood-soaked soil of a continent 
with too much tradition ! I propose, 
gentlemen, that in the interest of all 
humanity, we make ready to force the 
abandonment of Europe!" 

He sat down among the excited buzz- 
ing of the council. No more extraordi- 
nary view had ever been seriously stated 
before them. The Chief Commissioner 
was as astonished as any other member 
of the group. For many years he had 
been in more or less close association 
with the staid scientist and knew him 
to be indefatigable, resourceful, even 
brilliant, in his silent way. But tonight 
he had spoken with passion, and his 
arraignment of the inanimate continent 



of Europe was as unexpected as his 
proposal to de^pulate it. Yet, in other 
years, Dr. Barnfs had offered programs 
that at the time seemed- too fantastic 
for a sane man's consideration. To- 
day, many of these were functioning as 
commonplace details of a highly techni- 
cal civilization. The Chief thought best 
to approach this new idea with cautious 
open-mindedness. With a trace of irony 
in his voice, he spoke. 

"Dr. Barnes, for the past many years 
your organization has been working day 
and night ostensibly to help us defend 
ourselves from these raiders from Eu- 
rope. If you knew a way to render that 
continent uninhabitable at a single stroke, 
I deplore your reticence in keeping it 
a secret while we were wasting men and 
ships in futile and costly nibbling at it." 

"Because," replied Dr. Barnes, with 
dignity, "time and equipment were not 
available. Such a stroke will require 
elaborate preparations. Furthermore, its 
consequences will be so grave that it 
should be invoked only by those mad- 
men themselves. Now, we may pre- 
pare it secretly, as a purely defensive 
measure. If they keep the peace, it will 
not come into operation. But should 
they violate the treaties with a sudden, 
vicious raid — as they have done on every 
other previous occasion — that very act 
will set their doom in motion. The 
calamities that will thereafter befall the n 
will be virtually self-inflicted. Our na- 
tional conscience will be free of guilt." 

These words gave promise of some- 
thing more tangible. The Chief Com- 
missioner cared little for any theory 
about the Europeans, but as a weary 
and experienced director of relentless 
warfare he saw here the promise of an- 
other weapon. If there could be such a 
one powerful enough to destroy a con- 
tinent at a single operation, he wanted 
to know of it. That war was certain to 
be resumed, he had no doubt. This 
might be the deciding factor. He in- 



EVICTION BY ISOTHERM 



137 



vited Dr. Barnes -to reveal the details of 
his plan. 

The hearings xfequired Several days. 
Dr. Barnes successively introduced his 
two technical assistants in the plan, 
young Stanley, of the meteorological bu- 
reau, and Professor Stevens, the vul- 
canologist. It was Stanley's painstak- 
ing report that formed the basis for the 
discussions. The bulky portfolio, bulg- 
ing with maps, was marked "Plan M-4", 
the only title by which it was afterward 
made known to the world. Eventually 
Henry Thatcher, Director of Construc- 
tion, was called in for estimates and 
budget requirements. It was soon ap- 
parent that the figures involved were 
colossal and that ten years was hardly 
long, enough for what was to be done. 

The Chief Commissioner whistled 
when he examined the program. Be- 
sides all this, he must rebuild the sky 
fleets and rehabilitate the army. There 
were hundreds of ruined cities to be 
cleaned up and reconstructed. Com- 
bined, these activities would tax the 
mechanical and manufacturing resources 
of the hemisphere to the utmost. He 
felt that prudence required that the 
Eurasiatics be met with the tried and 
proven old weapons as well as the new. 

Yet this new idea appealed to him. 
It was breath-taking in its boldness and 
in its simplicity. But — would it work? 
A week of heated day and night session 
of the council brought the decision. It 
had to work. Nothing else promised 
more than a long, drawn-out continu- 
ance of the old struggle. Experience 
had taught them that the most hopeful 
end of that would be another truce of 
exhaustion. The project was authorized. 

HENRY THATCHER stood on the 
summit of a low peak some thirty miles 
to the westward of Mt. Iraza, in the 
Cordillera de Salamanca, watching the 
action of two of his giant "moles" on 
the beach below him. The Caribbean, 
once ninety miles distant at this point, 



now lapped the shore not Ave miles from 
where he was standing. The "moles" 
lay diagonally across the water's edge, 
like two stranded whales, half in, half 
out of the water. 

The metal monsters, plated like arma- 
dillos, crawled imperceptibly toward the 
foot of the mountain. They were a 
matter of three or four miles apart, eat- 
ing their way into the land that had once 
been Costa Rica. Each of them was 
five hundred feet in length and corre- 
spondingly thick. From its seaward side 
a huge suction hose dipped into the sea, 
on the other a massive tube of metal, 
more than fifty feet in diameter, led 
away over the land to the north. Fol- 
lowing the tubes with his high-power 
glasses, Thatcher lost them in the haze 
of the distant horizon. 

The crunch of approaching footsteps 
caused Thatcher to lower his glasses. 
Dr. Barnes and Stanley came up to him 
and exchanged greetings. He was ex- 
pecting them, as they had notified him 
only a few days before that they were 
making one of their frequent inspection 
trips. 

"How are the 'moles' behaving," 
asked Dr. Barnes, "since you started 
using the new solvent?" 

"Great !" exclaimed Thatcher. "We've 
stepped them up from half a million 
cubic yards a day to almost two-thirds. 
The stuff is more fluid, too, than with 
plain sea-water. We are pushing the 
muck north now at a rate of twelve miles 
an hour through the discharge pipes. 
Next week we can cut out numbers 18 
and 45 booster stations and send the 
men home." 

The party turned their backs on the 
two grubbing dredges and a few steps 
took them to where they could see the 
Pacific Ocean. Here, the waves broke 
against the foot of the mountain. On 
this side the work was finished. Over 
to the southwest the watery horizon lay 
approximately where the shore line and 
some towns used to be. The formerly 



138 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



distant Gulf of Nicoya was a thing of 
the past. 

Thatcher pointed downward and a 
little to the right to a glistening out- 
cropping of vitreous rock slanting down 
the mountainside. 

"Ray-gun scar," he informed them, 
laconically. Dr. Barnes regarded the 
glassy run of congealed fused rock with 
a face set grimly. Here was another 
memento of some skirmish of the air. 
In this place, probably, a swooping Eu- 
rasiatic had overshot his prey and the 
dazzling lance had slashed against the 
inert peak below. Of all the areas, this 
isthmus, from Honduras to Colombia, 
had been the most incessantly ravaged 
by the invaders. Not one of the in- 
habitants of this region had survived the 
last war. 

"What is your depth out there?" in- 
quired Stanley, pointing at the Pacific. 

"Fifteen hundred feet, minimum," re- 
plied Thatcher, "right in to the cliff. 
This range stands up pretty well for the 
most part and we can cut close. In 
some places there have been slides, but 
no big ones." 

"That doesn't matter," said Dr. 
Barnes briefly. Then, "I see you are a 
few months ahead of your schedule. 
That's fine!" 

"Yes," agreed Thatcher, "I always 
feel better a little ahead than behind. 
We are on the safe side with the Ferox- 
ite tunnels, too. All the shafts are down 
to depth, and about thirty per cent of 
the traverses finished. In another year 
we can commence boring out the big 
storage chambers." 

DR. BARNES WAS well satisfied 
with the progress. In these seven years, 
Thatcher and the Panamerican construc- 
tion crews had accomplished marvels. 
The clumsy "moles", in spite of their 
uncouth appearance, were uncannily effi- 
cient in their task of dredging away the 
lower flanks of the isthmus. This vora- 
cious implement, an invention of Thatch- 



er's, softened bedrock by impregnating 
it with a solvent mixed in sea-water, 
then ground it to a paste within its vi- 
brating interior. When fine enough, 
more water was added, and the resultant 
mixture was ejected into the waste tube 
that carried it hundreds of miles north 
to the dumping ground. 

In each of the successive wars, the 
Eurasiatics had first of all struck at the 
canals of Panama and Nicaragua. When 
Thatcher had come to the isthmus alter 
the armistice, he found two mangled 
ditches that must be cleaned out, 
straightened and rebuilt. Tin's task was 
a trifling one compared to the larger 
order of Plan M-4, which called for the 
narrowing of the isthmus to leave noth- 
ing but the crooked backbone of the cen- 
tral range of the Cordillera. Thatcher 
was faced with the problem of remov- 
ing all the shoulders and the plains from 
the northern canal, eastward to the 
eighty-second meridian, leaving in their 
place deep water. It was for this tre- 
mendous job that he had devised the 
"moles". 

Twenty of them had been built and 
put to the relatively easy task of clear- 
ing away the Pacific side — easier, be- 
cause there was less of it, and the re- 
moved earth could be spilled in the 
near-by deep water. There, the thou- 
sand-fathom curve was close to shore. 
But on the Caribbean side, Barnes and 
Stanley had ordered the earth conveyed 
far north to where the easternmost cor- 
ner of Honduras made a cape. This 
forced the lengthening of the huge spill 
pipes and the interposition of a number 
of booster pumping stations. It was to 
have a look at the made land at the 
dump that led the inspecting party to 
leave its vantage point and go down the 
slope a few hundred yards to where 
their reconnaissance cruiser awaited 
them. 

This machine was of the coiinter- 
gravity type, a thing of beauty in its 
delicate control, silent and smooth in op- 



EVICTION BY ISOTHERM 



139 



eration, and ideally adapted for hover- 
ing. As they soared away into the north, 
keeping low so that they could observe 
the encroachment of the scattered 
"moles" strung out along the shore line, 
Barnes sat in the rear compartment with 
his chief constructor and silently ex- 
amined the terrain flowing by beneath. 
A long string of buildings on the moun- 
tainside soon came into view. That was 
a part of the "blind", supposed head- 
quarters of the mythical tromium mines. 

The government, itself a master at the 
art of espionage, had early, through 
planned indiscretions, permitted the mis- 
leading news to leak out that the soil of 
the isthmus was rich in tromium ore. 
Since then, the director of the spy-de- 
fense section had gained some amuse- 
ment and not a little profit by seizing 
a number of Eurasiatic agents trying to 
burglarize laboratories to secure speci- 
mens of the metal. There actually was 
no such metal, but the imaginary prop- 
erties ascribed it were so marvellous 
that it served nicely to explain the mag- 
nitude of the mining operations in Cen- 
tral America. The Fleet Command had 
cooperated nicely with some wishful 
thinking in "discovering" tromium. Its 
"properties" were a nice combination of 
all the things they wanted and didn't 
have. 

Dr. Barnes noticed, on a flat landing 
platform beyond the buildings, the 
spread wings of three old VSF-6 ma- 
chines, glistening under a new coat of 
silveroid. He pointed at them in sur- 
prise, as the type had been obsolete for 
many years. 

"Bait!" explained Thatcher, grinning. 

Dr. Barnes bristled slightly at the 
other man's frivolous attitude toward so 
grim a matter. Himself a lofty idealist, 
he scrupulously refrained from allowing 
his emotions to become involved, even 
if, as now, he was planning the banish- 
ment of an entire race from its home- 
land in the greater interest of all men. 
He remarked, a trifle coldly, "You seem 



to enjoy your work, Mr. Thatcher!" 

"You bet I do!" replied his compan- 
ion, but the smile had vanished. "My 
mother, wife, and the three youngest 
children were in the so-called 'respected 
zone'. It was neuronsemia they dropped 
there, if you recall. That was the time 
we first heard of it. And my son Charles 
was in charge of your Thermo-dynamics 
laboratory the night " 

"I am sorry," said Dr. Barnes, so- 
berly. "I keep forgetting." 

LITTLE ELSE was said for the rest 
of the trip north. Above the Rio San 
Juan they passed over miles of ware- 
houses where the Feroxite was being 
accumulated. The tens of thousands of 
tons to be required during the last year 
was too stupendous a shipment to cope 
with in a single year. These planners, 
with their customary forethought, had 
commenced the accumulation of it early. 
Now there were considerable stores of 
it at both ends of the cuts. 

At the point where Cape Gracias a 
Dios had stood for centuries among the 
shoals and pinnacles of the western 
Caribbean, they now could see the land- 
ward end of a slender peninsula stretch- 
ing away to the east-northeast. Eight 
of the big spill pipes ran along it, side 
by side. Through them rumbled the 
soupy mixture of ground-up isthmian 
bedrock. On past where Gorda Bank 
with its skeletons of ancient galleons 
had lain, even to Rosalind Bank, the fat 
tubes went, and then curved out of sight 
into the water. 

"There are no more shoals; this will 
be all the dry land we can make," said 
Thatcher, gesturing toward the tip of 
the peninsula where the pipes plunged 
into the sea. "The muck is now being 
spread over the bottom between here 
and Jamaica. We cannot avoid some 
loss, as the current is raking part of it 
into Bartlett Deep. But if my estimate 
of the amount we still have to move is 
correct, we should be able to shoal this 



140 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



passage to somewhat less than a hun- 
dred fathoms;" 

Stanley was in the center compart- 
ment, feeding charts marked with odd- 
shaped punch holes through an integrat- 
ing volumometer. Stepping to the auxil- 
iator on the side, he cranked in gradient, 
friction and viscosity factors. He read 
off the answer from the annunciator 
dial. 

"There is nearly enough now," he 
called back, "but let it run. The bigger 
the factor of safety, the better." 

The next evening the party rested in 
the living room of Professor Stevens' 
bungalow, high up above St. Pierre. 
They had spent the day looking over the 
control panel of the valve room of one 
of the radial injectors of Mt. Pelee. Dr. 
Barnes complimented Stevens on his in- 
genuity and tenacity in the highly haz- 
ardous and unprecedented assignment he 
had been given. 

Never before in history had men de- 
liberately sought to prime a volcano. 
Nor were they ready yet to do so, for 
first the delicate work of sinking a dozen 
shafts leading downward and inward to 
the hot explosive core had to be done. 
The problem was to drive them deep 
enough — but not too deep. These shafts 
were spaced more or less evenly on a 
rough circle about the base of the moun- 
tain. Water suction pipes of large diam- 
eter were brought up from the sea and 
connected to monstrous centrifugal 
pumps, radio-powered and wired for re- 
mole control. 

Professor Stevens had supervised the 
work faithfully these anxious seven years 
and had now completed the underground 
work without serious mishap. There 
was yet much to do, as only one of the 
pump units had been installed. Pelee 
on Martinique and Soufriere on St. Vin- 
cent's were the two volcanoes he had 
drilled. Like the isthmus, these islands 
had been depopulated by the Eurasiatics, 
their cities erased. Their further wreck- 
age would entail little loss to the world. 



Stanley's Plan M-4 called for a ma- 
jor volcanic eruption, to be set off at the 
exact moment desired. Dr. Barnes, in 
approving the plan, thought it best to 
rig two volcanoes, in view of the un- 
certainty of control. If one refused to 
erupt, after being primed, there at least 
would be another one ready for the at- 
tempt. The volcanic explosion was not 
a vital part of the plan, but a highly 
desirable accessory, because of its accel- 
erating effect. 

They discussed a number of aspects 
of vulcanism that night, and it was quite 
late before they were ready to retire. 

"You understand, Stevens," cautioned 
Dr. Barnes, "that an ordinary eruption 
will be just a waste of time. We must 
have a really tremendous explosion — 
something on the order of Krakatoa, or 
of Asamayama in the eighteenth century. 
Violence to the utmost! Nothing less 
will do. Are you ready to say you can 
produce it?" 

Professor Stevens shrugged his shoul- 
ders and spread his hands in a gesture 
of helplessness. 

"I am not prepared to guarantee any- 
thing. Maybe these mountains will blow 
up. Maybe not. I would like to push 
the injectors lower, but I don't dare. 
One might backfire, which would wipe 
us out, a thing I do not care for. But 
worse than that, it would bring on a 
premature eruption that might 'kill' the 
mountain for years. 

"However, from what I have learned 
about the rock structure under here, I 
am inclined to think these fellows will 
explode within a week after we start 
the water down. As to the quality of 
the explosion, no prediction about what 
a volcano will do or will not do is worth 
the breath it takes to make it." 

Dr. Barnes laughed and suggested 
they go to bed. After all, if Stevens 
didn't know, nobody did. 

THE FOLLOWING year, 2008, the 
ambassadors of both the major divisions 



EVICTION BY ISOTHERM 



141 



of the human race set their signatures 
and the Great Seals on a treaty of per- 
petual peace, each promising faithfully 
never again to encroach upon the oth- 
er's hemisphere. 

People of good-will hoped that the 
treaty would mean something, that the 
Eurasiatics would respect it. But, nev- 
ertheless, persistent and ominous rumors 
kept coming of gigantic offensive oper- 
ations being perfected. Confidential re- 
ports from Panamerican agents in Eu- 
rope brought confirmation. Travel of 
any sort was forbidden through certain 
areas, most especially the Scandinavian 
peninsula, and the great industrial tract 
formerly known as Poland. The un- 
known factor was the date, the day when 
the inevitable surprise attack would be 
sprung. 

Two years later, Panamericana had 
finished its defensive program, as origi- 
nally scheduled. Its stratosphere fleets 
had been rebuilt, the army in readiness. 
A reserve was at hand with which to 
hold back the Eurasiatics until the 
strange new weapon of Dr. Barnes was 
brought into play. There was neither 
desire nor intention of using these forces 
offensively : instead there was the sol- 
emn hope that they would never have to 
be used at all. But the Chief Commis- 
sioner was none too easy about the se- 
curity of the nation. It could well be 
that the enemy had also invented some 
new, unguessable weapon. He could 
only wait, for to the cynical mind the 
last treaty was as meaningless as any 
that had gone before. 

On the isthmus, all construction ma- 
chines and crews had been removed. 
There were only skeleton forces resid- 
ing at the two oceanic canals. Between 
them, the slender thread of the single 
range of the Cordillera was all that re- 
mained of the isthmus. These moun- 
tains were permeated by a system of in- 
ter-connecting tunnels, with risers to 
appropriate places near the summits, and 
throughout were numerous large cham- 



bers. This network was packed with 
Feroxite in all its ramifications. Many 
of the explosion chambers were located 
far below sea-level. 

At Trinidad, Professor Stevens was 
living in a bomb-proofed powerhouse, 
guarding his generators and the pro- 
jectors of the radio power by which the 
great pumps of his encircling volcano 
injectors were to be operated. In the 
same tight building were the controls 
to actuate the valves of the injectors 
and to start the robot machines. He re- 
mained there quietly, making occasional 
tests. From time to time he would tour 
the two deserted islands and check the 
state of his equipment. 

Quite by chance, in June of that year, 
Tomboro, a great mountain in Sumbawa, 
blew up with frightful abruptness in the 
greatest eruption in history. Within 
three days, the earth was treated to the 
spectacle of gorgeous sunsets every- 
where. The sun, when it could be seen, 
was always ringed by an. extensive red- 
dish corona — the "Bishop's Rings" of 
the meteorologists. Stratosphere pilots 
complained of the haze and low visibil- 
ity at all altitudes. Volcanic dust filled 
the upper air, all over the earth. 

Stanley, taking advantage of this 
purely natural disturbance, had warn- 
ings broadcast to all portions of Pan- 
americana. Local administrators were 
advised to take steps to provide against 
an approaching winter of extraordinary 
bitterness.. The Chief Commissioner had 
certain exposed areas in Canada, Pata- 
gonia and southern Chile evacuated. 
Everywhere, fuel in extra quantities was 
made ready and stored. 

The high council received warning in 
October that the Eurasiatic breach of 
the treaties might come at any moment. 
Heretofore, most aggressor nations had 
chosen the spring as the time to launch 
wars, but in this instance the effect de- 
sired was surprise. The crafty rulers of 
Europe hoped that summer being past, 
the Panamericans would be less alert. 



142 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



In three great divisions they came 
across the Atlantic, one in the far south, 
one in the north, and the central one to 
occupy the Caribbean area to sever com- 
munications between the two Americas. 
Both m the south and the north, equally 
great fleets rose up to meet them. The 
old. old, meaningless round of slaughter 
and destruction, of merciless killing and 
burning — purposeless, because the two 
combatants were so exactly balanced in 
power that half a century of previous 
fighting had brought no result but uni- 
versal exhaustion. 

The central squadron, acting along its 
traditional line of attack, advanced 
straight to the Isthmus of Panama, 
bombing and sweeping widi heat rays as 
it went. At Panama, part of the aerial 
destroyers stayed to complete the de- 
struction of the force there, while the 
rest went on toward the Nicaraguan 
ditch. In time, they saw beneath them 
the houses built by Thatcher, the build- 
ings they believed to be the celebrated 
tromium mines. The attacking vultures 
swooped lower, dropping their bombs as 
their sights came to bear. 

WITH A BLINDING blast that 
made every seismograph in the world 
dance spasmodically, the Cordillera de 
Salamanca flew instantly into fine dust, 
rising miles high in the geyser of sea- 
water that went up with it. The bomb- 
ing squadron above them, men and ma- 
chines in fragments, went too. Even 
away to the east, above Panama, the 
other invading bombers were hurled 
sidelong through the air like chips in a 
typhoon, crashing into one another, ex- 
ploding from the contacts of their own 
deadly loads, and scattered as crumpled 
wreckage far beyond into the agitated 
waters of the Gulf of Darien, or into 
northern Colombia. 

There was no living thing for hun- 
dreds of miles around after the explo- 
sion of the gigantic mine of Feroxite. 
Where the Cordillera had been was now 



a gap in the isthmus two hundred miles 
long. Through it rushed the waters of 
the Caribbean, pouring to the west into 
the Pacific. Under water, the ragged 
stumps on which the mountain range 
had stood were being gnawed at and 
smoothed away by the steadily increas- 
ing current. The great Atlantic Equa- 
torial current had found a gate to the 
west! No longer was it pent within 
the blind alley of the Caribbean and 
forced to escape through the Yucatan 
Channel to the Gulf of Mexico, where 
in turn it ftad no outlet but to double 
back and flow into the North Atlantic. 
The reason for the existence of those 
currents was gone. Straight ahead lay 
the best route. 

In Trinidad, Professor Stevens heard 
the tremendous explosion. He needed 
no other signal. He closed his switches. 
The injectors to the roots of the An- 
tillan mountains obeyed their robot 
valves and began feeding tons of sea- 
water into the hot sub-crater crevices. 
In a few hours one, then the other, of 
the terrible volcanoes went into action 
with roars that made the vast Feroxite 
blast inconspicuous. Soufriere and 
Pelee had belched another cubic mile of 
dust into the high isothermal zone of 
the stratosphere. 

Dr. Barnes and Meteorologist Stanley 
were waiting in Yucatan. Directing the 
same craft in which they had made their 
inspection tours, Barnes slid out of the 
prepared hide-out and hastened to view 
their handiwork. As they flew over the 
watery wastes where ten years before 
Costa Rica had lain, they were satis- 
fied. The cut was clean. Only one 
small island marred the completeness of 
the blast. Not until systematic surveys 
could be taken would they know the full 
measure of their success, but they saw 
enough to give them confidence that their 
plan had been proved. 

"Let them fight a little while, over the 
cities," said Dr. Barnes, with an air of 
finality, as he thoughtfully stroked his 



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144 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



beard. "It is already November. Soon 
they will quit coming ; they will be hav- 
ing too much trouble at home." 

IT WAS A terrible winter every- 
where. The cold waves came early, 
stayed longer, and were more intense. 
The sun. veiled by the dusty strato- 
sphere, gave little heat, except within 
the tropics. By December, sub-zero 
weather was being experienced through- 
out the country north of the Chesapeake. 

The Eurasiatics, discouraged over the 
utter loss of the central contingent that 
had perished over the^isthmus, and baf- 
fled by the unexpected stiffness of the 
resistance, were in growing difficulties. 
The stratosphere was too hazy for high 
altitude work and the winds steadily in- 
creased in violence. Their position in 
the hostile skies quickly became unten- 
able. Reluctantly, they withdrew and 
returned to Europe. 

But there they found conditions far 
worse. Blizzard had piled on top of 
blizzard. North of the Alps, every val- 
ley was already filled with snow drifts. 
The Baltic soon froze and took on the 
appearance of the Arctic Ocean. The 
great base they had established in the 
Kjolen Mountains, filled with war sup- 
plies and the devilish cultures and chemi- 
cals for the last world struggle, became 
inaccessible. Unprepared for cold so 
bitter and so pi-olonged, the inhabitants, 
already bled of their vital reserves in 
the assembly of materials for the big 
push, suffered intensely. Soon they be- 
gan to die in increasing numbers as they 
struggled desperately through the drifts 
and the icy blasts seeking the warmer 
south. 

In the Americas it was somewhat 
colder than usual, but thanks to the 
warnings and careful preparations of 
their government, there was little real 
suffering. The country dug in and made 
the best of a hard winter. A close watch 
was kept on the skies, but the invaders 
did not return. 



There was good reason for it. When 
March had ended, the North Sea was 
as frozen as the Baltic, and the shiver- 
ing refugees from Britain crossed the 
Channel on sleds. Weather stations — 
before they were abandoned — reported 
that the Iceland "low", that beneficent 
guardian of Europe's climate, had first 
moved away toward Labrador, and had 
then dissipated. Mean temperatures had 
already dropped twenty degrees. The 
isotherms, those sinuous lines of equal 
temperature, which had heretofore 
crossed southern Canada only to curve 
far to the north on crossing the Atlantic, 
were rigidly straightening out. Like 
creatures caught in the bight of a wire 
being drawn taut, the peoples of Europe 
were relentlessly being shoved out of 
their homelands. 

Some stayed, tearing down the houses 
of frozen or fleeing neighbors for fuel. 
Spring would soon come and the hard 
winter would be gone. But spring did 
not come. Nor summer. The myriad 
tons — cubic miles — of volcanic dust in 
the high heavens intensified all woes by 
filtering out a large proportion of the 
incoming sunlight. The plains and 
mountains below, dazzling in the un- 
broken cover of snowy ice, reflected com- 
pletely what little heat reached them. A 
new winter came, or rather, the year- 
old one became more dark and tempestu- 
ous. Other layers of ice and snow were 
laid above those already there. A new 
Ice. Age had begun — a glaciation invited 
by the impetuous commander who had 
set off the blast that killed the Gulf 
Stream. 

The Director of the Eurasiatics had 
shifted his capital successively to the 
south until now it was in Jerusalem. It 
was a strange Holy Land, a white waste 
of snow, but not so bitterly swept by 
the howling north winds as the conti- 
nent left behind. It was here that he was 
to receive the full impact of the conse- 
quences of his ill-advised ambition to 
rule the Earth. 



EVICTION BY ISOTHERM 



145 



REPORTS from all sections of Eu- 
rope were more and more disconcerting. 
Copenhagen, London, Berlin — all these 
had been wholly abandoned, cluttered 
with ice and snow to the second stories 
of the buildings. The circulation of the 
winds had drastically changed. The pre- 
vailing ones were now from the north, 
and as the flow of heat formerly con- 
ducted by the Gulf Stream from equa- 
torial regions to the Arctic was checked, 
the temperature gradient between the 
two zones steepened. Wind velocities 
were at hurricane heights. 

Krevinsky, the chief meteorologist, 
who heretofore had been offering weak 
explanations, mouthing such phrases as 
"sunspot cycles," "solar constants," and 
the like, now knew that the great ocean 
current had actually been diverted. Eng- 
land was to become another Labrador, 
Scandinavia an eastern counterpart of 
Greenland. But what puzzled Krevin- 
sky was the suddenness of the glacia- 
tion. Such a profound change could 
hardly come so quickly. 

While he was pondering this enigma, 
further dismay was created in Jerusalem 
by the receipt of a curt notice from 
Hang-Chow, regional capital of the Ori- 
ental division, that the yellow race had 
asserted its independence of the Eurasi- 
atic confederation. More and more in 
recent years they had come under the 
domination of the pacifistic Chinese. 
Asia now, as well as ice-bound Europe, 
was lost to the grasping dictator. 

Zandorff, the director, recognizing his 
temporary inability to do anything but 
accept the secession, turned his atten- 
tion once more to the situation in Eu- 
rope. There had been other severe win- 
ters ; this one would pass. He sent for 
Krevinsky, and demanded sternly for a 
long range forecast. He wanted to know 
when the government could move back 
to Vienna. 

But by that time Krevinsky had 
learned of the two volcanic eruptions 
almost coincident with the great blast at 



the isthmus. Previously, his technicians 
had interpreted the recorded tremors as 
indicative of the delayed portions of the 
isthmian blast. Now he knew the worst. 

"Excellency," he said, "hereafter the 
winters of Europe will all be cold. The 
Gulf Stream has ceased, and with it the 
Iceland 'low'. If that were all, the con- 
tinent would be uncomfortable, but much 
of it habitable. But in addition to that, 
we will have no summers, and far more 
severe winters, until the dust of three 
tremendous volcanic eruptions settles. 
That condition prevails over the whole 
world." 

"Why should that make a difference ?" 
snapped Zandorff, impatiently. "Why 
are we worse off?" 

"Because it starts the vicious circle of 
glaciation. The dust, being fine, scat- 
ters and disperses sunlight — but does 
not interfere with the outgoing terres- 
trial radiation of long wave length. We 
will lose much more heat than we will 
get for the next several years. 

"The ground is already frozen deep 
and there are many feet of ice. Once 
the continent is deeply covered by a 
white, reflecting surface which cannot 
all melt in a summer, the solar heat will 
be merely rejected by the snow, and not 
absorbed. Every successive winter 
thereafter will add to the thickness of 
the ice. 

"Excellency, until a great natural up- 
heaval re-routes the ocean currents — we 
must abandon Europe to the glaciers." 

Zandorff snarled in rage. He or- 
dered his guards to drag Krevinsky 
away. "Execute the incompetent fool!" 
he screamed. 

But the enormity of the folly of the 
last expedition had been realized at last 
by the long-suffering Europeans. In- 
stead, they imprisoned Zandorff, pend- 
ing his execution for high treason. 

The council reconvened and sadly took 
up consideration of the project to emi- 
grate into Africa and try to build a new 
nation among the colonies there. 



The Disinherit 

A short story about one who watches 
over development. 

by Henry Kuttner 





THE man worked swiftly and 
mechanically, a grotesque figure 
in his protective armor and 
transparent helmet. He was alone in 
the bare lead-sheathed room, seated be- 
fore a conveyer belt, his gloved fingers 
making delicate adjustments in the enig- 
matic mechanisms that moved into place 



The giant spoke. 
"You are safe here. 
Your enemies can- 
not pass that bar- 
rier." 



under the microscope before him. There 
was a stinging smart in his eyes, a dull 
pain he would not be able to relieve 
until his work was done. 

Fifteen years ago a soldier had taken 
him to this grim chamber far under- 
ground and instructed him in his duties. 
Ever since then he had known the dull 



THE DISINHERITED 



monotony of a machine's existence, not 
even comprehending the nature of his 
work. In 2530 A. D. the Helots— the 
worker class — had lost all knowledge of 
science, and so the man could not un- 
derstand that the subtly powerful bom- 
bardment of radium was destroying his 
sight and his life. But the horror of 
darkness that lay before him he realized, 
for his father, too, had worked in a room 
similar to this. 

Presently a bell sounded through the 
audiophone within his helmet, and the 
man arose as the conveyer belt slowed 
and stopped. Sighing, he removed the 
armor. Under the cool radiance of car- 
bon-dioxide lamps he stood revealed as 
a thick-bodied youth whose seamed, 
harsh face seemed far older than his 
twenty-eight years. A loose, sleeve- 
less tunic, shorts, and sandals, were all 
the clothing necessary in the warm at- 
mosphere within the City of the Lords. 
He stepped out into a low-ceilinged cor- 
ridor and trudged toward an elevator. 

Five minutes later he thrust open the 
door of his apartment, a cheerless room 
in the Helots' dormitory section. With 
no trace of expression on his stolid face 
he crossed to a low couch and dropped 
upon it in the utter relaxation of weari- 
ness. But he sat up quickly as a girl 
entered. 

She, too, wore the sexless Helot uni- 
form. Her face and close-clipped dark 
hair seemed drab and uninteresting, but 
the mask of impassivity dropped from 
it as she came toward the man, and 
made it alive and attractive. 

"You're tired, Ron," she said. "A 
hard day?" 

Ron Carver shrugged. "I'm strong 
enough for it, 1 guess. But my eyes 
ache " 

The girl went to a compartment in 
the wall and brought out a vial. She 
pressed Carver back on the couch and 
brushed his eyes with the soothing liquid 
as she talked. 

"Must it go on forever?" Her voice 

AST— 10 



147 

was very bitter. "Won't they transfer 
you?" 

"Why should they, Morna? It's easy 
to get new Helots to replace the others." 
He sat up again, gripping her wrists. 
"Morna, I had another warning today. 
About " 

"A— a child?" 

"Yes. We've been mated for a year 
now, and — well, you know their laws. 
So many Helots annually — no more, no 
less. They want " 

Morna dropped the vial unnoticed on 
the floor and stared dully at nothing. 
"No. I won't bear a child. Not even 
your child, Ron — to this. Slavery. No !" 

WITHOUT expression Carver said, 
"The alternative is a re-mating. , Some 
other Helot will have you." 

"No," the girl said again. "We can 
die if necessary." ■ 

"You know I can't. There's Ardno 
out there " 

Morna held up a warning hand, her 
face frightened. The girl's lips formed 
unspoken words. "Not here. They 
may be listening/' 

She picked up the vial and resumed 
her task of bathing Carver's eyes. 
"They've been talking in the Factory, 
Ron. Excitement — all through the City. 
About the Ship." 

"Eh? I heard something, not much 
though. Has it reached Mars?" 

Morna shook her head. "I don't 
think so. A few rumors floating about, 
that's all. Nothing's certain. They 
wouldn't tell us, you know. But I be- 
lieve something's gone wrong. One of 
the guards told a girl that the Ship 
stopped halfway to Mars and is coming 
back. It's strange." 

"Why strange ? They might have run 
out of fuel. Or " 

"It's more than that," Morna whis- 
pered, her mouth close to Carver's ear. 
"I hear the Lords are — afraid!" 

"What?" 

"Something happened out there in 



148 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



space. I don't know. It's the first in- 
terplanetary flight beyond the Moon. 

and Don't keep moving, Ron! I 

can't " 

But Carver pushed her away and got 
up. He went to a closet and from be- 
hind a meagre stack of garments with- 
drew a small parcel, which he hid in 
a mesh -steel knapsack. He donned 
heavier clothing. 

"Be back soon, Morna," he told the 
girl, and went out. 

Morna stared after his bulky figure. 
Her hands were clenched in her lap, still 
gripping the little vial. Presently she 
dropped it to the floor and crushed it 
underfoot, grinding the glass to splin- 
ters. She was thinking of the warning 
Carver had received. Another mate. 
No ! She would bear a child for only 
one man, and not even for Carver would 
she bear — a Helot. Another slave for 
the machines of the Lords ! 

CARVER made his way to one of the 
City's gates. His pass was in order, 
and the soldier nodded and waved him 
on. A long, broad road stretched into 
the blue distance through wooded hills, 
but Carver turned aside into the scanty 
forest. Occasionally he cast a furtive 
glance behind him, but, though autocars 
flashed along the road and one or two 
aircraft droned overhead toward the 
landing-fields on the City's roof, no one 
paid heed to the Helot. It was good 
psychology- to let the workers do as they 
wished during their free hours. Always 
provided that they did not interfere with 
the pleasure of the Lords. 

Outside the City the wind was cold 
and chilling, yet Carver drank it in hun- 
grily, his face bare to the refreshing 
blasts. Out here a man could feel some 
illusion of a freedom which had not 
really existed in America, or in all the 
world, for hundreds of years. To be 
free one must have in his veins the un- 
tainted blood of the Lords, the racial 
purity that gave them license to rule 



Earth. Other races were inferior by 
law of conquest and by decree of the 
Lords, who held their power over the 
mixed stocks of America, as ages ago 
Americans had enslaved the Negroes. 
The guards were recruited from the 
ranks of the Lords, each youth serving 
a brief military apprenticeship. And un- 
der the oligarchy sweated and labored 
the Helots, their birth-rate limited, hope- 
less and impotent, their criminals 
doomed to being hunted down by wolf- 
hounds for the sport of the despots. 

Carver could not understand the so- 
cial forces that had inevitably led to such 
an end ; he simply toiled and hated, one of 
a million robots working amid the slim, 
graceful forms of the overbred Lords. 
Now he trudged through the forest, the 
ground strange to his sandaled feet 
which were more used to the rubbery 
pavements of the City corridors. Once 
he glanced up at an unfamiliar shrilling 
in the air, and saw a gigantic silvery 
torpedolike craft drift down till it was 
hidden by a wooded bridge. The Ship, 
returning from its voyage toward Mars. 
Briefly he wondered what had gone 
wrong in space. 

BUT THE SHIP was forgotten as he 
came to a little cave beside a brook, and 
saw an old man, gnarled and shrunken, 
sitting in the sunlight. Carver came for- 
ward hastily. 

"Ardno," he said. "Father. You 
should not — what if they saw you?" 

The oldster turned a sightless face, 
pale and wrinkled, toward Carver. His 
voice was thin and high. 

"I'd die, of course. They'd kill me. 
And you'd not have to risk your life 
smuggling food out of the City to me." 

Carver's quick glance examined the 
sky. He helped his father into the cave. 
For almost a year Ardno Carver had 
dwelt here, since his failing sight had 
brought down on him the official decree 
of euthanasia. There was no room in the 
City for outworn Helots. Death was 



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ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



painless and ifterciful. But to young 
Carver it had seemed very horrible that 
his father should die. and so he had 
managed to do the impossible — guide 
Ardno to this lonely place where the 
blind man could still live, after a fashion, 
feeding on the scraps Carver stole. 

"Well?" The oldster's voice was 
querulous. "What did you bring, eh?" 

He was not satisfied till he had fin- 
gered each morsel and lifted it in mis- 
shapen fingers to his nostrils. "It'll 
do," he said grudgingly. "It'll have to." 
And he fell silent, cramming the food 
into his mouth. 

Carver sat in silence on a boulder, 
eying his father in the gloom. He re- 
membered when Ardno had been a 
strong, well-shaped man who had more 
than once felt the lash because of his 
moments of insane defiance. A bitter, 
dry sob shook Carver's thick body. The 
father looked up quickly, a crumb of 
bread on his lip. 

"What's the matter?" 

"Nothing." 

Sightless eyes stared in Carver's di- 
rection. But after a moment Ardno re- 
turned to his meal. 

THE NEXT DAY there were whis- 
pers in the City. The Ship had re- 
turned. And the crew were frightened 
and puzzled. Something had stopped 
them in space — some force they could 
not understand. They had returned to 
Earth, but not under their own power, 
unable to comprehend what had hap- 
pened to them. 

So much the tales said, furtively mur- 
mured among the Helots. There was 
a curious air of unrest in the City when 
Carver slipped out that night, and, walk- 
ing swiftly along the road in the twi- 
light, unaccustomed thoughts stirred in 
his mind. Apparently the Lords were 
not omnipotent. They could be de- 
feated. But — Carver smiled bitterly — 
not by Helots. Not by unarmed slaves. 

Abruptly he stiffened. A familiar 



figure was coming toward him. vague 
in the distance. With a cold shock he 
recognized his father, and saw that two 
men — guards! — were moving swiftly in 
Ardno 's direction. Blindly the old man 
walked, gnarled hands outstretched fum- 
blingly, his feet guided by the hard sur- 
face of the road. 

"No!" Carver tried to shout. "Go 
back! Back!" 

Somehow he knew why Ardno was 
here. The old man had come to find 
death that would release himself and his 
son from an existence that had grown 
intolerable. No longer would Carver 
need to risk torture by smuggling food 
to his father. And, for Ardno, blind- 
ness and agony would be over. As 
Carver raced on, a part of his brain was 
saying, over and over, "This is best. 
It's the best way out." 

The affair was finished before Carver 
reached the group. Ardno was quite 
dead, a limp, misshapen huddle beside the 
road, and the two guards were sheath- 
ing their guns. One of the soldiers 
turned to face him. 

"Well? What d'you want. Helot?" 

Ever after that Carver was to remem- 
ber how the sinking sun glowed redly 
behind the two men, outlining their slim 
figures with a hazy aura. And he re- 
membered, too, the silhouette of an arm 
coming up, a gun gripped in a slender 
hand. Strangely he felt no emotion ; 
he seemed to be outside his body, watch- 
ing it dispassionately, listening to its- 
hoarse breathing. 

"Well?" 

If he said the wrong thing — if he re- 
vealed his relationship to Ardno — it 
would mean perhaps death, at least tor- 
ture. Carver hesitated. His great 
shoulders shook as he fought for air, 
through a throat dry and clamped. 

One of the guards said something in 
an undertone. The other nodded, moved 
forward, his weapon's muzzle not a foot 
from Carver's chest. 

"Helot— back to the City ! At once !" 



THE DISINHERITED 



151 



Carver shrank away, looking down 
at the gun. And beyond it he saw, al- 
most at his feet, the blind staring eyes 
of Ardno. 

The Helot, Carver roared — and the 
powerful engine that was his body swept 
into action. One huge hand drove down, 
clasped the gun and wrenched it free. 
He scarcely heard the report or felt the 
bullet tear along his palm. He saw 
nothing but the startled white face of the 
guard, and beyond it the other man 
drawing his weapon. 

"He's mad !" the disarmed soldier 
cried, and screamed in agony as the 
gun's butt smashed into his face, pulp- 
ing its delicate features in bloody ruin. 
He staggered away, still shrieking, and 
Carver lunged at the other man. 

A bullet hit the Helot's side and 
glanced off his ribs. But that could 
not stop Carver. Without glancing at 
the bellowing gun he came forward like 
the drive of a piston, and his fist cracked 
cleanly against the soldier's chin. The 
man went back bonelessly and dropped, 
his head twisted at an impossible angle. 

THE OTHER GUARD lay limp and 
unconscious. Breathing harshly, Carver 
stared around. Cars were approaching. 
The Helot's side hurt. He touched it, 
and was surprised by the amount of 
blood that smeared his hand. 

Insensate rage mounted within 
Carver, and he stood with his fists 
clenched, facing the City. This will 
mean death, he thought. 

And a new mate for Morna 

The realization stabbed his brain. His 
lips moved wordlessly. He turned and 
ran toward the forest, and behind him 
came a fusillade of shots. 

From the woods a man came to meet 
him — such a man as he had never seen 
before. Ten feet high, moving with 
lithe, unhurried swiftness, he was at 
Carver's side before the Helot had cov- 
ered three yards. Carver growled an 
oath, lunged at this new enemy, teeth 



bared in a snarl. 

And without warning came — the in- 
explicable. Around the two there lifted 
a wall of cold flame, crackling softly as 
it grew and came together fifteen feet 
above the ground to form a dome. They 
stood within a little hut of fire, spring- 
ing apparently from the Earth itself. 

Fear shook Carver. But in the new- 
comer he saw only menace, and he 
leaped forward 

And halted. Some incredible force 
held him motionless, draining his mus- 
cles of power, holding him paralyzed. 
He stood fighting against invisible 
bonds, glaring at the other. 

It was utterly silent, save for the 
faint crackling of the flame-wall. 
Against the pale glow loomed the gi- 
gantic figure, and now Carver realized 
that he was not looking upon a human 
being. 

For this man was cast in human mold, 
yet about him was an air of alienage — 
a calm and passionless withdrawal in 
the pale eyes — that told more than did 
his abnormal height. He wore a scanty, 
sleevelss robe, and his muscles beneath 
ivory skin were those of a colossus. 
Somehow the fear and hatred in Car- 
ver's mind faded and fled away as he 
looked into the wise, ancient eyes of the 
giant and read in them a message. 

He did not hear it, but words seemed 
to form within his brain, unmistakable 
as though spoken by an audible voice. 
It said softly, "I will not harm you." 

From the dome of fire above, a flam- 
ing tendril dropped straight for Carver's 
head. It touched his hair, seemed to 
probe through skull and brain, an ut- 
terly incredible search that found the 
secret citadel of the man's being and — 
examined ! To Carver it was as though 
he lay naked before the eyes of a god. 
He sensed some incredible communion, 
a flood of knowledge pouring from him 
into — what ? 

The sensation vanished. The finger 
of light was gone. The giant put a 



152 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



huge, yet somehow graceful hand on 
Carver's shoulder. Once more a word- 
less thought came to the Helot. 

'You are safe here. Your enemies 
cannot break through the barrier." 

CARVER KNEW that he should 
have been frightened, yet he felt only a 
vast and utterly new sense of peace. The 
gray eyes of the giant aroused in him a 
sensation he could not analyze. He 
seemed to look through them into an- 
other world. 

The huge man seemed to listen. He 
bowed his head in acknowledgment. To 
Carver he said, or seemed to say, 
"Hearken, for you must remember this. 
Your masters — they who call them- 
selves Lords — have sent out a craft be- 
yond the atmosphere of this world. And 
therefore they have brought themselves 
within the ken of the Watcher." 

Carver whispered, "The — Watcher?" 
"Aye. A being evolved from Man, 
but so alien to us that we can compre- 
hend little of his attributes. From a 
dead Galaxy he came, to guard this 
Galaxy of ours. For Man is born to 
serve — but to serve those beneath him, 
not those above. Far in the future, life 
in this Galaxy will have evolved to a 
state where it is sheer energy — a super- 
intelligence composed of all the beings 
from all the planets in this star-cluster. 
From a single cell we go upward, till 
at last we become as the Watcher — a 
being of energy, of life itself. And 
when that time comes, we shall leave 
our dead group of worlds to find an- 
other Galaxy struggling up evolution's 
path, and we shall guard and guide it 
as the Watcher guides and guards us. 
For ages we of Mars have known the 
Watcher and communed with him. He 
prevented us, in our days of savagery, 
from bringing war to the other planets 
— as he shall do again now." 

The walls of flame brightened, cast- 
ing a white glow over the Martian. 

"The Lords rule your world, and rule 



it unwisely. In time they might learn 
wisdom, but they must not bring the 
seeds of folly and war to the other plan- 
ets. So the Watcher turned back their 
spaceship and brought me here from 
Mars to aid him. He — and I — have 
learned much from the minds of your 
people. You are the last of fifty we 
have examined, and the Watcher has de- 
cided on the best course." 

Carver could not entirely understand, 
yet a surge of hope mounted in him. 
"You'll help us kiU the Lords?" 

Ageless sorrow stood for a moment 
in the Martian's pale eyes. "No. You 
are yet barbarians. You have a long 
road to travel. But in your group — 
you Helots — there are the germs of 
courage and strength and truth. So, 
for a hundred years, all power will be 
taken from the Earth." 

"I don't understand " 

"You cannot. Science has been lost 
to you for ages. Yet there are dream- 
ers among you, and after the hundred 
years have expired, you will rediscover 
the wisdom of your ancestors. Use it; 
do not misuse it. The Watcher has 
power over vibration and over energy — 
you cannot understand that, but know 
this : the Lords are hereafter weapon- 
less. Their guns are toys. Their great 
machines will halt for lack of fuel. If 
they continue to rule the Helots, they 
must do so by brawn or brain alone — 
and they cannot succeed in that. From 
this hour you are equal to the Lords." 

A mad little flame of vengeance grew 
and danced in Carver's eyes. The Mar- 
tian lifted his hand. 

"Wait. You must not begin your 
task with evil. Seek no revenge on those 
who were your masters. Leave them ; 
they cannot halt you. Go forth into the 
fields and forests beyond the cities ; 
learn to live as free men. Learn to till 
crops and kindle fires. Grow wise. And 
in a hundred years Earth will have 
power again." 

Carver whispered, "The Lords " 



THE DISINHERITED 



"They must learn to live, and forget 
how to rule. Else they will starve in 
their giant cities. Now wait : with the 
Watcher's aid I shall speak to the 
Helots all over your planet. Wait " 

CARVER SENSED a strange tense- 
ness in the air, as though it shook un- 
der the burden of power inconceivable. 
Through the man's mind came a 
thought, and he knew, with a curious 
certainty, that the same thought came 
at the same time to the brain of every 
Helot in the world. 

"Come forth from your cities ! The 
Lords are powerless ; their rule is bro- 
ken. Harm no one — but come forth ! 
You are free henceforward !" 

The Martian looked down at Carver. 
His smile was very tender as he placed 
his hands on the Helot's shoulders. 

"You must lead your people now, 
and give them the Watcher's message. 
So farewell — brother !" 

A blaze of light blinded Carver. He 
staggered back, rubbing his eyes. When 
he could see again, he stood alone on 
the sloping hillside. Martian and walls 
of flame had alike vanished. Though 
the Sun had set, a full Moon washed 
the bulwark of the City, half a mile 
away, in gleaming brilliance. 

A knot of men stood in a puzzled 
group beside the road, staring toward 
Carver. Beyond them were several 
autocars. And further down the road 



153 

Carver could see other vehicles coasting 
to a halt. 

At this time, he knew, the City should 
be bright with innumerable carbon- 
dioxide lamps. Yet its windows were 
dark. From far away came a faint tri- 
umphant shouting. 

A few soldiers separated from the 
others and came toward Carver hesi- 
tantly, their guns leveled. He went to 
meet them, and briefly felt a surge of 
hatred that dried his throat with its in- 
tensity. But he fought it down, as he 
fought down the momentary fear that 
arose at sight of their weapons. 

The guards squeezed triggers — 
vainly. They stood undecided finally 
forming a barrier, shoulder to shoul- 
der, against the advancing Helot. 

Without perceptible effort he pushed 
them aside. They were weaklings, he 
thought contemptuously. And, strangely, 
all hatred of the Lords had left him. 
Before him lay a mighty task, and he 
could not halt now to destroy those who 
had been his masters. 

The Lords stood staring after him as 
he swung along the road, a tall defiant 
figure in the moonlight. From the gates 
of the City a horde was pouring, men 
and women who had been Helots — 
slaves no longer ! Among them, Carver 
knew, was Morna, Morna who would 
bear his child. Still the mob pressed 
forward, shouting. 

Carver went down to meet his people. 



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154 




"Hell Ship" — first of the spider-Beet. 

Dear Mr. Campbell : 

..Have I got a new idea for space travel in 
Hell Ship" or haven't IV It seems like it to 
me, and Arachnc — the 6'. 8. Arachnc, if you 
please mull S. S. .standing for "space-ship") — 
is a real vessel to her papa. I could even draw 
a picture of her — which might be tough with 
U1 °j*[ any other of my science-fiction machines. 

1 UC idea came lo me at one of those demon- 
srrations performed with a saltshaker. a mag- 
net, a piece of paper, and a liberal supply of 
Iron tilings. Take the magnet, cover with the 
piper. load the saltshaker with the iron chips, 
and sprinkle. The lilings stand up bravelv and 
.show you patterns and lines, "lines of magnetic 
force." They showed me a way to a new story, 
and a new ship, anyhow. They're invisible, those 
lines, hut real — though you can't see them — as 
steel cables. They'll replace steel cables, hitch- 
in? the lilt of a crane to the mass of steel that 
n-eds moving. They'll harness a half-million 
horsepower steam turbine, hold It down and 
make it work, and turn out electric power. 

They're real, and you can take hold of them 
— yet you can't feel 'em. You can't, that is, 
unless you gel the right kind of apparatus. A 
simple electrical coil will take hold of them. A 
.simple coil of wire with a simple current flowing 
through it will take hold of those invisible, "In- 
tangible" lines of force and shinny up them like 
a monkey up a vine. 

Or — like a spider up a thread. So. it's the 
Arachne of course. Einstein's shown that elec- 
tric, magnetic and gravitational fields are simi- 
lar in character. Electric and magnetic lines 
ol force are used, worked with, handled regu- 
larly, todayi Well, when wc get to know a little 
more aboul it, maybe we can design the right 
kind of coil, and send (he right kind of current 
through it, and have n device lhat will climb up 
and down tin- gravitic lines of force as readily 
OlH the simple coil with its simple current will 
slide up and down the magnetic lines of force. 

The ship built up about that as it would on 
tiie drafting boards of Hie Capertou Company. 
First, the coil, spun in the lines of gravilic 
force to generate the peculiar currents needed, 
and the great shaft to drive and carry the coil. 
That shaft though, has to carry nil the weight 
of the ship, and it's got to have a motor, a huge 
electric motor driving it. Put 'em on the same 
Bhofl to minimize stresses aud gearing and 



complexities. The motor? Well, our gravitic 
rotor has to spin faster out in interplanetary 
space where the lines of force are weaker fur- 
ther apart, so we'll want a variable speed nio- 
S« r nn rt S i. iy a D ' C ' series-wound job. of about 
40.000 horsepower. Some atomic generators to 
supply it. and some gyroscopes to stabilize the 
ship against the thrust of the big motor. 

It's taking shape now. A sphere shape will 
be most efficient. The huge drive shaft and mo- 
tors in the center, the load distributed so it falls 
•below" the lift thrust of the gravitic rotor. 
That means heavy cargo rooms, the motor, gen- 
erators and gyros down below. But the glanl 
rotor-shaft carrying all the stress, will have to 
have huge thrust bearings, probably the big oil- 
flotation type, with copper-cadmium or copper- 
silver bronze bearings. 

We'll put the crew up at the top, in among 
the queer-shaped little rooms near the top of 
the bulge, where they can listen to the "voices" 
muttering down the great stringers and cross- 
beams distributing the thrust of the rotor. Put 
the passengers in between top and bottom, keep 
'em out of the way. and you have the J?. S. 
Arachnc, first of the spider-fleet — may their tribe 
increase ! 

Hut troubles, new troubles with new machines. 
A crack in that giant drive-rotor out between 
the worlds, where the shifting, weaving, invisi- 
ble lines of force thin out 

So my ship and her problems. So my Skip- 
per Parsons, and Chief Engineer Josh McNab. 
They're the realest characters I've fooled around 
with in some 18 years. I hope you'll like them ! 
— Arthur J. Iiurks. 



Casey's Uranians. 

Dear Mr. Campbell : 

I have never beeu one to shudder whpn an 
author used speeds far surpassing the speed of 
light for his rockets, aud So I was interested 
to notice the other dny that Einstein has .sug- 
gested that there may be an "ether" all around 
us. Light travels through this "ether" 180,000 
miles per second, but when an object is moved 
the "ether" compresses it. Thus the length of 
u yardstick would be reduced to zero were it to 
attain the speed of light. By using hydrogen 
atoms as a "clock" and shooting them through 
a vacuum it has now heeu proved that a moving 



SCIENCE DISCUSSIONS 



155 



clock keeps slower time than a stationary clock 
If this theory of ctberic "compression" is proved 
conclusively, your authors will have to throttle 
their spaceships down a trifle. 

Kent Casey s "Static" was interesting, but he 
fails to account for the fact that Uranus has an 
atmosphere made up almost entirely of methane 
and ammonia, and that the temperature is about 
100 degrees Centigrade. Would such a world 
produce life as much like ours as Casey implied? 
— Charles Jarvis, 10 Avenue Petaln, Shanghai, 
China. 

Evolution and Light. 

Dear Mr. Campbell : 

And with that standardized heading, I com- 
mence. Mr. Cummins, are you not wrong in 
assuming that, in a million years or so, mankind 
will be a race of giants? Even though man has 
been increasing in size for the Inst five hundred 
years, there must be some limit, it seems to me, 
on the size an intelligent, mobile being could 
possess. The limit would be a factor of the 
speed with which neural impulses travel from 
the sensory organs to the brain. If it took too 
long for a being to react to a situation, that 
being would not be efficient enough to survive. 

To return to the future evolution of man — 
Mr. Swisher raises an interesting point when he 
suggests that all the work that goes on with 
x-rays and radioactive radiations may produce 
an effect on man's evolution within the next 
hundred years. But wouldn't that effect appear 
in the children — oh, oh, pardon me ! Mr. 
Swisher does say In his letter that the effect 
may not show for several generations. Sorry. 

The "Bunte-Hayden-Dirac" theory went over 
my head, I'm afraid. But it sounded good, ex- 
cept that Mr. Hayden didn't explain how the 
fact that the force of gravity varies inversely as 
the distance would fit into his theory. Or maybe 
he did, and I missed it. But let's hear more o£ 
the "Bunte-Hayden-Dirac" theory, Mr. Hayden. 

And now to get my nickel's worth in on this 
argument about the effects produced by a lumi- ' 
nous body traveling faster than the speed of 
light. According to Einstein — and my own in- 
terpretation, I suppose — bodies can not travel 
faster than the speed of light. So that is that. 

But, supposing it did. Then, of course, its 
speed would be faster than the speed of light 
only in relation to the observer. 

Einstein says — I hope — that light travels at a 
constant speed, out in space, and that no other 
velocity can equal or be greater than that speed. 
Also, the speed of light is the only constant. 
The time and space units in the equation vary 
with respect to one another, as the speed of the 
moving object approaches the velocity of light. 

So, as far as the luminous body was con- 
cerned, light would travel at its usual speed 
icith regard to the luminous body. With regard 
to us, the luminous body, traveling in relation 
to us with a speed greater than that of light, 
would seem to have a negative length, and time 
would be going backward ! Or am I just suffer- 
ing from a hang-over? Perhaps I'd better drop 
the subject. 

But if Mr. Tarr desires, I'll dig up the for- 
mulas known as, I believe, the "Lorentz Trans- 
formation" and see what I can do with them. 
You know, if in a system "K" an object is mov- 
ing with a certain velocity along co-ordinate "X" 
what would be its velocity in a system "K-Prime" 
— or something. 

1 hope that some one who knows what it Is 
all about doesn't jump into "Science Discussions" 
and land on me with both feet. But I suppose 
I deserve it. 

But I'm trying — gosh ! How I am trying ! 

A word must be said about Mr. McBckron's 
letter and its vocabulary. But words fail me, 
and I pass on, pausing only to say that I hope 
he writes again. 

I sec that Mr. Wooding and Mr. Hilt also 
have words to say about the luminous body 
moving faster than light. I think I'll retire, 
and leave the field to their more capable hands 
— Allan Ingvald Benson, Box 17, 17. 8. B. Cali- 
lornia, San Pedro. California. 



BRASS TACKS 



Wellman's been liked more and more 
recently. 

Dear Mr. Campbell : 

Congratulations ! — for two of the finest nov- 
elettes I have rend in many years. "Seeds of the 
Dusk is a eorkingly well-written first-place 
y'' n , n ? r - "Hen Against the Stars" close second. 
1 didn t think M. W. Wellmau was capable of 
such a story after his previous one in Astound- 
ing. 

I haven't read anything else but I just 
coiildn t wait till I'd finished' tbe entire copy. 

Again congratulations ! Keep it up. — J.Mason, 
33 McLean Blvd., Toronto, Out., Canada. 



How do you rate them? 
Dear Sir: 

I have been an ardent reader of Astounding 
Science-Fiction since 1935, and I think it's the 
best magazine on the market. The best story 
you ever published was, in my opinion, "The 
Mad Moon." Weinbaum was a genius and I 
want reprints by him. Please make Brass Tacks 
bigger and print less Science Discussions. They 
make me have a headache. 

Keep Wesso on the covers, and Dold and 
Marchioni on the insides. Thomson is your 
worst illustrator. Let's not have any more by 
him. 

Here is a rough scale of your authors : 

E. E. Smith 90% 

Jack Williamson ..00% 

Eando Binder 82%% 

Stanton A. Coblentz 80% 

Nat Schachner 80% 

Don A. Stuart 75% 

R. R. Winterboth.mi 70% 

Eric Frank Russell 70% 

John Russell Feam 70% 

Manly Wade Wellman 60% 

Warner Van Lome 60% 

Arthur J. Burks 55% 

J. Harvey Haggard 02%% 

Stories by any of these authors will be wel- 
comed. If this letter is printed. I should like 
correspondence with any boy 15-16 interested 
in science-fiction. — F. D. Wilson, 16 Pilking- 
ton Rd., Southport, Lanes., England. 



Concerning Letters. 

Dear Editor : 

May 1 politely suggest that James Avery of 
Skowhegan. Maine, commence walking east and 
not hesitate when he reaches the shore ? 

Ib brother Avery indifferent to the entertain- 
ing but unpaid authors surrounding him, or is 
he just sour because his man lost the election ? 
His complaint in the June issue that enjoyable, 
entertaining letters no longer appear in readers' 
columns is slightly damp. That same June issue 
contains some wonderful examples. 

I will admit that the old "gang" have gone 
— apparently — for who reads letters from Pritch- 
ard, Hornig, Lutwin, Schwartz, Wollheim and 
that California creature, Ackerman, nowadays? 
Perhaps it is that they occupy positions that 
curtail the writing of letters to Brass Tacks. 

Nevertheless, Mr. Avery needs but to look 
around his own letter mentioned. Reread the 
one from A. S. McEckron of Galva, Kan. That 
letter approaches the pinnacle of brilliant and 




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BRASS TACKS 



157 



non-offending sarcastic wit and humor, displays 
remarkable human lnsiglit ami shows an admir- 
able talent of word-arranging. The MeEckron 
letter should have lead off In Brass Tacks In- 
stead of almost ending Science Discussions. 

And look over again some of the enjoyable 
phrases, sentences and paragraphs in some of the 
others: "1 am writing this by the Dickering flame 
of my wee fallow alp in flood-bound Los An- 
geles"; ''Science is wonderful — when it works!" 
and the same gentleman's experiences with his 
letters and his honorable name being cast about 
the world as if they were commercial commodi- 
ties. "This past issue was O. K., except for 
that in i sli t of a child's nightmare known as 
"Jason Sows Again." I never did care much for 
Burks anyhow. I've read him in other maga- 
zines and he doesn't agree with my metabolism" ; 
and so on down the column. 

If letters such as the June issue contained 
don't please Mr. Avery, I admit that I am at a 
loss to know what to do about it. If the 
magazine started paying five dollars per letter, 
the boys of the government Writers' Project 
might be able to turn out a few to please him. 
My friend Avery himself didn't do so bad at 
writing. It was interesting, if not enjoyable. 
But perhaps he would prefer this kind, which is 
of the "type once printed in the old ** Stories" : 

deaR ediTor — 

i think yer book is lousy and i want my 
monie back, the stories are punk and they 
ain't even good stories, yer wholed mag. is 
punk awful, i dare yew to print this 1 

If that is the type of letter the Maine gen- 
tleman craves, he will have to go back to the 
magazine he mentioned, for I have yet to see 
8tt.Cn a letter in the modern Astounding and I 
dkl see snch a letter (almost a word for word 
copy) as is given above in the very magazine 
he yearned for. — Rob Tucker, 218 E. Monroe 
St., Bloomington, 111. 



Maybe he doesn't like Schachner. 

Dear Kditor: 

Whether or not a science-fiction magazine is 
improving, declining, or remaining at the same 
level, there usually appears each year an issue 
that can in most phases be termed excellent. 
Don't misunderstand me ; there arc a good many 
excellent issues of Astounding throughout the 
year, hut after all there is likely to be one that 
in all angles dominates the others. The June 
Astounding already has the honors for this year. 
Unless Kditor Campbell turns superhuman be- 
fore the next six months have passed, I am sure 
this same June issue won't be excelled until 
Santa Claus has dropped around again. 

The cover and its "story" were both good. I 
hope you use Saturn on the next astronomical 
cover." It wouldn't be hard to do, you know ; 
Schachner. Gallun or one of your other office 
boys could dash off a little yarn about the ringed 
world in just a few minutes. (All linotyped, 

t0 Normnn L. Knight's story possessed the mag- 
nitude of "Frontier of the Unknown", despite its 
brevity. By all means, secure more from this 

"""Men Against the Stars" Is the best in the 
issue, though I believe Wellman could have 
made a powerful novel out of the idea. Sequel 
here, please. 

After reading a heap of garbage called "Izst 
— Eartbniun" two months ago, I hastily re- 
moved Raymond Z. Gallun's name from my list 
of favorite science-fiction writers. I reached the 
conclusion that he had moved in with Schachner 
and was borrowing Nat's linotyper quite fre- 
quently. I even began to wonder If friend RZG 
hud a two-year-old brother. Fortunately, how- 
ever, Gallun returned just In time to convince 
me that he still had traces of "Old Faithful" 
in him. In fact, "Seeds of the Dusk" is Ins 
best story since "Old Faithful." I see his mime 
on next month's schedule. Let's hope the emu 
ing yarn is as good as "Seeds of the Dusk". 

I'm afraid Jack Williamson has caught Schach- 
nerltus, too. "The Legion of Time" is a miser- 
able failure when placed next to Williamson's 
first masterpiece. "The Legion of Space". The 
new serial is nothing but tripe. He must have 
•written it while striking a mutch. 



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Lastly, congrats to Wesso on his magni8cent 
drawing of Mars— John Chapman, 1521 Couis 
Ave. S. E., Minneapolis, Minn. 



" 'Three Thousand Years' was great!" 

Dear Mr. Campbell : 

Three issues have come out since I last 
wrote; so I'm a little behind the times; but 

i m flB wnat cnu 1)0 done to catch up. 
"Three Thousand Years", of course, deserves 
comment Brat, and, as far as I'm concerned, 
lavorable comment. It was an excellent siory, 
both from the standpoint of the characteriza- 
tions and flic incidental science — a good example 
of the latter being the episode of the vault open- 
ing by the glassmen. And the description of 
Gamble's "perfect civilization" ! That was a 
real laugh. McClary's style is far better than 
the average, and he deals with the human ele- 
ment, and the reactions of people to their en- 
vironment, in a way that I have seldom seen 
surpassed. He produced not only a science- 
fiction yarn, but a piece of real literature. 
More ! 

I'd like to comment on all the stories, but I'm 
afraid the postage for the resultant ims. would 
require postage "beyond my present means. How- 
ever, a few need something said about them. 
For instance. Manly Wade Wellman's "Men 
Against the Stars". There was realism mixed 
in with an understanding of the spirit of ex- 
ploration, the onward drive in men — -whatever 
it is — and the ability to tell a fast moving 
yarn. The mixture producing a story that tied 
for first place in the issue. The other top- 
notcher was "Below — Absolute", which treated 
a not altogether new idea in a novel manner. 
However, this "negative space" business is in 
danger of becoming overworked ; it has been 
used quite a bit of late. It might be a good 
idea to give it a rest. Another good tale was 
"Seeds of the Dusk". The idea of an organism 
being able to develop a science by introspection 
is a new one to me, and it was presented most 
convincingly here. Gallun seems to be a con- 
sistently good writer. 

I wish the same could be said of Wesso as 
an artist. He did good work on the June cover 
- — in fact, it was the best one since March. And 
his interior work was an immense improvement 
over that of the past few issues — especially the 
illustration for Wellman's story. Schnceman did 
a good illustration — the second one — for "The 
Legion of Time". And apropos Schneeman, 
let's have more of his cover illustrations ; the 
one for the May number was fine. I have one 
fault to find with Binder : his drawings are too 
obviously sketches. That is, he leaves too much 
white, unshaded space in his work. As for 
Brown — please confine his efforts to the cover ; 
he does very well there. 

Speaking of illustrations, it seems to me that 
the drawing or picture accompanying the story 
has a great influence on the impression which 
that story leaves in the reader's mind. I have 
read yarns that Impressed me greatly, and yet, 
after analyzing them closely. I have decided that 
the illustrations — in each instance imaginative 
and well executed — have been just as responsible 
for the effect. It was the realization of the 
spirit of flie story that did it — the visible pres- 
entation of the writer's idea. And, conversely, 
rotten illustrations have spoiled perfectly good 
stories for me. Perhaps the reason that Dold 
is well liked is that, although his technique is 
none too good, his imagination and his ability 
to sense the effect which the author wished to 
produce enable him to produce appropriate draw- 
ings. And that's one reason I don't like Thom- 
son's work — he apparently has no great im- 
agination. 

Mr, Avery wonders if the readers are in fa- 
vor of the new regime. 'Indeed, he appears quite 
skeptical. "Who asked for the mutants?" says 
he. "Why don't we see the type of letters they 
used to write in the good ol' days'/" (Wonder if 
it could possibly be that not so many of them 
are written?) Well. Mr. Avery, suppose our 
editor had asked the readers, "Do you w.vit 
mutants?" How many readers would know 
what he was talking about? He would have to 
show them — anil he did. and I. for one, am 
satisfied. And I dare say that if the majority 



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'"Three Thousand Years' was a mess!" 

Dear Mr. Campbell : 

Just a line of congratulations for "The Legion 
of Time". It starts off like n great tale. Wil- 
liamson is again hitting the peak he reached 
with "The Legion of Space" and "The 
L'ouieteers". 

Sorry I can't say the same for McClary's opus. 
It's a dull mess. Your new authors are trying 
to be funny. Peterson is good, but Casey and 
Schere are pathetic. 

For the April issue, orchids to Sprague de 
Camp and Lester del Rey. A big bouquet to 
Brown, your best cover artist. Good luck to 
you in further mutations — Frederick Morgan, 
3'J West Ilth St., New York City. 



Astounding was shifted back in the month 
because growth required that it be 
shipped with a larger group of Street & 
Smith magazines. 

Dear Mr. Campbell : 

Had not Astounding come out the day it did 
this letter would have been a far cry from 
that you would have received. And who 
wouldn't begin to wonder — with Astounding over 
a week past the "deadline"? I still wonder 
why it was so late in reaching the newsstands. 

"Three Thousand Years" was a big disappoint- 
ment. It started out line — original — but ended 
up little more than a carbon copy of "Rebirth." 
With due respect for T. C. McCIary (and realiz- 
ing that even authors can use a little cash now 
and then) how did you let that one get by, Mr. 
Campbell ? 

On the other hand "The Legion of Time" ex- 
ceeds even the advance notices you gave it. 
Place this one first on your Analytical Labora- 
tory. 

1 must say I appreciate the science articles 
you give us. "The Great Eye" and "Witnesses 
of the Past" were both excellent, informative 
reading. Let's have more like them. But 
•where was E. E. Smith's scheduled article? 

Of course we want fantasies like "Wings of 
the Storm." They are a pleasant diversion from 
the highly involved "x-y-is 1! -ab"= who cares?" 
type of science-liction we readers have been 
forced to swallow of late. However, stories like 
"Isle of the Golden Swarm" have no place in 
Astounding. They are distinctly not science- 
fiction, fantasy or otherwise — even conceding 
their merit. 

Best stories of the month : Discounting 

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"Legion of Time," which is, of course, first, 
"Philosophers of Stone" comes second. It was 
unique — the author, D. L. James, has really let 
his imagination roam. TAof is the type we want 
more of. Then — "Seeds of the Dusk" followed 
very closely by "Men Against the Stars". They 
were nil excellent, so when I sav "Below — Abso- 
lute" was last in merit, it means merely that 
it was less excellent than the rest. 

And the cover ! Let me shake your hand 

via the postal-ways. Now. how about a cover, 
showing for all time, Earth as seen from the 
Moon. (Ten to one odds that North and South 
America are the continents in the foreground!) 

Wesso's illustration for "Men Against the 
Stars" was the best I've seen since the last poor 
issue of Astounding. And Jack Binder improves 
with each mouth — Mark Keinsbcrg, 430 Surf St., 
Chicago, 111. 



"Less science articles." 

Dear Mr. Campbell : 

I don't write fan letters to movie stars. Nor 
to radio idols. Nor to magazines. But !, 

I find myself breaking out with a deep crim- 
son rash after reading the letter from a gentle- 
man in Skowhegan, Maine, in the June issue of 
Astounding. Maybe I'm allergic to criticism of 
the things I happen to like, but Mr. Avery's dia- 
tribe gets me down. 

"Good old days of '34 and '37 !" When the 
unlamented Hawk ("arse chased hither and yon 
through the universe in search of the nrch-fiend. 
Whoozis, and ended up nowhere. And that was 
the fceitt that the mag had to offer. 

More power to Wesso. His "mutant" covers 
are swell. And the art work on the inside of 
the magazine has been steadily improving, the 
past few months. 

Leave Brass Tacks and Science Discussions 
where it is, and as it is. What if it is stuck 
nwHV among the ndsV I'd rather have it there, 
than to have to turn to the ads to finish the 
storv I am reading. I'm naturally lazy, 1 reckon. 
I like to finish n story in one piece, not hunt 
around among the ads and tag-ends of other 
stories for the rest of it. When I've finished nil 
the varus in Hip book, then I read what the 
other fellow thinks about the preceding issue. 
And, stealing insidiously into my subconscious, 
come the ads. I hate 'em, too. Mr. Avery, but I 
read them, just the same, somehow. 

Oh, yeah. A gentle slam, Mr. Editor. Don t 
you think that fico science articles are n bit too 
much? If I had my way. they would be con- 
densed to a quarter-page, and stuck in as filler 
at the end of a story. (As on page 90, June 
issue.) ... . 

I should like to cast my ballot with those who 
enjoved "Jason Sows Again." I thought it was 
just" about tops. But then, this author always 
rings the bell with me. "Three Thousand lears 
was more than O. K. "Hyperpilosity." an ex- 
ceptionally good yarn. "Iszt — Enrthman. well- 
written and interesting. "The Faithful — hm ! 
— oulv fair. 

In the June issue, the story T liked best was 
"The Legion of Time" by Jack Willinmson. Cer- 
tninlv a new departure from the hack-worn, run- 
of-the-mill time stories. Second best, Manly 
Wade Wellman's "Men Against the Stars." Well- 
man is alwavs good. Third choice. "Three Thou- 
sand Years." Swell ending of an excellent serial. 
Fourth choice. Knight's "Isle of the Golden 
Swarm." I enjoyed this story as much as any 
of I he others, but if it must be cataloged, I 
guess I'd rate it fourth. Fifth, Gallun S really 
outstanding novelette. "Seeds of the Dusk." The 
base of the story, plant invasion from Mars, is 
almost identical with a story by Clark Ashton 
Smith, which appeared in another magazine sev- 
eral years ago. However, Gallun's treatment of 




Not so hot. Story ideas, unlike liqueurs, do not 
Improve with age. File this story in the cheese 
section, labeled "Very Old." 

Now for my squawk. V» hy can t we have 
some Penton & Blake stories in Astounding. Mr. 
Campbell? Have the "thushol" got Vm, or 
what? Maybe Editor Campbell is bashful about 
printing Author Campbell's stories in his maga- 
zine. Or sumpin. 



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161 



In conclusion : an orchid to the present regime 
of Astounding, and on artichoke to chronic kiek- 
cra. We've got a doggone good mag, lot's keep 
it that way — Itassoll Morrin Wood, 1050 Bayvlew 
Avenue, Wilmington, Calif. 



Mrs. Ley illustrated "Witnesses of the 
Past". 

Dear Mr. Campbell, 

Time has rolled on, and lo and behold, it is 
OJUe t <>r my monthly letter. 

First, a few general remarks. I w»b exceed- 
ingly pleased with the cover of the June issue 
and earnestly hope that this mutant type will 
become increasingly frequent as time goes on. 
rnere'B only one minor criticism I would like to 
make and that is this: don't you think that it 
would have been rather more realistic had Mars 
been shown in some phase other than full? A 
gibbous Mars with the shaded portion just barely 
seen against the dark background would have 
been much more startling nnd effective. 

I would also like to make my suggestion for 
the next mutant cover. (Everybody seems to be 
advising you on that point, so 1 may as well 
contribute my two cents.) It is generally con- 
ceded by one nnd all that the most beautiful 
Object iu the Solar System is .Saturn, nnd conse- 
tluently it would seem that a cover showing 
the famous rings as seen from Saturn's surface 
would be quite distinctive. 

And now nhout the stories. There seems to 
be a dearth of the longer stories. Your "novel- 
et les" are often only a page or two longer than 
the short stories. This is unfortunate as the 
complete story fills an Indispensable cavity 
in the scheme of things. Its length permits the 
development in more complete detnil of the plot 
and it has none of the elements of discontinuity 
which mark the serial. 

I think it wonld he quite easy for you to 
give us two thirty-page novelettes each month if 
you would give us only one serial at a time. 
Furthermore, one science article is quite enough, 
and the ten pnges thus saved could quite profit- 
ably be turned to fictional uses. 

And now for my ratings for the June Issue- 
Intended speeiflcally for use in the "Analytical 
Laboratory". : . 

1 — "I.eeion of Time" (Second Installment.) by 
Jack Williamson. 1 cannot deny that there hna 
been a distinct let-down in this installment, 
which in n measure disappointed me. The scenes 
.,f gory bloodshed I consider quite unnecessary. 
However, I overlook I hat fault In view of the 
general excellence of the plot and of the story 
(thus far) as a whole. 

2 — "Isle of the Golden Swnrm" by Norman h. 
Knight I could scarcely believe that this fast- 
moving, clearly-written, interesting tnle was 
written by the same author who wrote "Frontier 
of the Unknown". The lnlter was boring and 
long-winded In the extreme. 

3 — "Philosophers of Stone" by D. T-. James. 
The idea behind the plot is what got me in tills 
one. A world of protoplnsm ruled by inorganic 
crystals is novel, to say the least. 

4 — "Witnesses of the Fast" by Willy Ley. At 
Inst we have a science article based on biology. 
I believe that this Is the first one of this type 
ever lo appear In our magazine. Let s have 
more if von please. The illustrations for the ar- 
ticle were excellent. Who drew them? 

5 — "Below — Absolute" by Hnrry Walton. Not 
outstanding but satisfactory. 

Neither of the two novelettes was anything 
to brag about, hut I would like to congratulate 
Mr. Wellmnn on the poem which appears on 
pages 14 and 1R. It was a good deal better 
than the story itself. 

Lastly. 1 would like to array myself against 
what will probably be an overwhelming majority 
and proclaim from the housetops that I think 
"Three Thousand Years" unlit to print. It is 
not the worst Berlal I ever rend, hut It certainly 
is the worst that ever appeared in Astounding. 
Just to show you what I mean, the rating the 
June Issue received (averaging the ratings of the 
Individual stories weighted according to length) 
iB 85% if "Three Thousand Years" Is Ignored, 
but only a bare 07% if It Is Included — Isaac 
Asimov, 17-1 Windsor Place, Brooklyn, N. Y. 



SNUBBED BECAUSE OF 
"ADOLESCENT SKIN"? 

Act now to help keep your blood 
free of pimple-making poisons 

Don't go on being cursed by loathsome pimples. 
Don't make others feel ashamed of you or shun you. 
Find out what's the matter and correct it. 

During the period of adolescence, in the years be- 
tween 13 and 25, important glands are developing. 
This causes disturbances throughout your body. 
Waste poisons from the intestines often find their 
way into the blood . . . and may break out in ugly 
skin eruptions. You must help free your system of 
these intestinal poisons. 

Thousands of young people have solved this prob- 
lem — Bimply by eating Fleischmann's Yeast. Each 
cake of this fresh food contains millions of tiny, 
living plants that act to help you eliminate waste 
poisons from the body — before they can get into the 
blood. Your skin becomes clearer and fresher again. 
Many get remarkable results in 30 days or less. 
Don't lose time. Start eating Fleischmann's Yeast 
now ... 3 cakes daily, one before each meal. 



130 ¥011 



WANT a D< IV 
business profes- 
sion of your 
own with nil 
the trade you 
can attend to? 
Then become a foot correctioniet, and in a few wei s 
earn big income in service fees — not medical, not chi- 
ropody — easy terms for home training, no further 
capital needed, no goods to buy, no agency. Estab- 
lished 1894. Addxeaa 

Staphonf on Laboratory, 33 Back Bay, Boston, Mass. 




EN 



Get free booklet about Zo-ak: Tablets — tho formula of well-lnnm 
New York physician created especially for men. Zo-ak contains 
quitk-aetino, vegetable stimulants plui essential vitamin coocm- 
tratos la adequate amounts to build up health and itrenclh. A'k 
for Zo-ak (blue box) at any good druggist, and write for free 
booklet by registered physician. Sent In sealed envelope liy 
Zo-ak Company, SO West 45 Sfc, Dept. A. New York 

FINAL SALE RUSH t S 

ONLY S6.4S— Double Action Revolver, coets J12 elncwhare. 
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Send 21 with order. CartridiroB free for cuh in full. Order 
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WINEHOLT CO., Box IX WOOPBIHB, 




HOLDS FALSE ' 
TEETH 




A slcglo application on plntec — even 
lowers — brings aU-doy comfort. Ono 
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Made by tbo makers of Stera-Kletu. 
Money bade If not delighted. 
FOR FREE SAMPLE wrlto Tha 
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Waterbury, Conn. 



GAMBLERS SECRETS EXPOSED 

Fascinating booh gives secrets of professionals. I/earn how you 
aro boat by Dice, cards, wheels. Slots and other games of chance. 
Send for interesting deocrlptlvo details and book "How to flay 
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M -C SALES CO- Bog 4078. Kansas City. Mo . 

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To relieve ihe torturing pain of Neuritis, Rheumatism, 
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Get trustworthy NURITO on this guarantee. Don't wait, 

...'•.on anrwenriff advertisements 




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r- act Bate onriotin cement a frut» any pan 
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REPEATING SUNG SHOT 



9iw llmjlnel P mJ k B S IQi j 
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216 

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Spociol Catalogs oa HaJh^ Stamps, Seidi, Auln Acutmies, Occiib S SpiillmlitB, Magic. and Boats. Prica 2c JfocA. A/I 7 for I Oc r 



Please mention this magazine when answering advertisements 



I 



DON'T BUY RINGS" REBDRE 
IF CAR WASTES OIMAS 




TO $151.37 

and Reboring? 



ENDORSED 

By Member of 

Society Automotive Engineers 
National Aeronautical Assn. 
Detroit Soc. of Engineering 
Pontiac Engineers Club 

Let u* send you L. H. Smith's com- 
plete report which shown that the 
compression of a badly worn 6-cyl- 
Inder motor wab merited 32.-t£ and 
brought back to within .00 points of 
IM original new car efficiency. Such 
teats conclusively prove the eiensa- 
tional meritrt of Ovrhaul. 



WHY PAY UP 

For New Rings 

If worn rings and cylinders cause 
your car to be an oil and gas eater 
—before you spend a lot of money, 
try Ovrhaul. Give it an opportuni- 
ty to do for you what It has done 
for thousands of others. Here are 
costs of new rings and rebore on a 
few 1935 models: 

Cost of Now Time of 
Rinfi* and Car 

Make R abort) Tie-up 

Chevrolet $50.00 2 days 

Do Soto 62.60 2 days 

Dodge 59.20 2 daya 

Ford $50 to 55.00 2 days 

Buick 80.00 2H days 

Cadillac 151.37 2 days — — r 

MONEY-MAKING TERRITORIES OPEN 

For Salesmen and Distributors Who Act Quick! 

Sales of Ovrhaul have been phenomenal. Hundreds of Salesmen 
and Distributors in the United States and abroad. The biggest 
money-maker In years. National magazine, newspaper and radio 
advertising carry the message of Ovrhaul to 18,000,000 car owners. 
The market has barely been scratched. To wide-awake men we 
offer opportunity — an opportunity which may never come your 
way again. A fast selling, repeating article, fully protected by 
U. S. and foreign patents. Saves motorists millions of dollars, 
Ovrhaul Sells for Less Than Spark Plugs. Exclusive terri- 
tories still open — but you must act quick if you want In on this. 

Phone, Write or Wire TODAY! 

Let us send you free sample which every salesman Is fur- 
nished for demonstration. Let us show you, with their permis- 
sion, ACTUAL earnings of our distributors. Let us show you 
how you can start in this business NOW — before all territories 
are assigned. The market is there— we have the product— are 
you the man? Let's find out. Write, phone or wire today. 
B. L. Mollinger, Pres., OVRHAUL CO,, G-918 Los Angolcs Calif. 



Miner's Amazing Mineral 
Discovery Saves Up to 95% 
of New Ring and Rebore 
Costs— If Worn Rings and 
Cylinders are Wasting Oil 
and Gas Send Coupon Be- 
low for FREE SAMPLE 

TAKES PLACE OF NEW 
RINGS AND REBORE! 

Nearly a half-million motorists have used 
this revolutionary method of cutting oil and 
gas waste caused by worn rings and cylinders. 
Savings up to 50% reported. Give your car 
new power, pep, speed and quiet with this 
amazing mineral discovered in the Rocky 
Mountains. Awarded A. T. L. Seal of 
Approval. 

Quickly placed through spark plug openings and 
at a fraction of the cost of new rings and rebore .this 
amazing mineral fills in and plates worn rings and 
cylinder walls. Ovrhaul gives your motor Increased 
compression. Cuts oil consumption, increases gas 
mileage, adds new power and speed, with other sub- 
stantial benefits of new rings and rebore. Ovrhaul 
has been thoroughly tested and proved by impartial 
laboratories and great Universities In the United 
States and abroad. Proved harmless to finest motors. 



INSTALLED IN 30 MINUTES! 



Ovrhaul works on the mineral plating principle 
—No special tools needed. No car tie-up. No dan- 
ger of ruining motor by grinding cylinder walls- 
works in while you drive — saves you time and 
money. Gives you months of extra car use. A single 
application lasts up to 10,000 miles. 

SAMPLE FREE! 

If your car Is wasting oil and gas, before you 
spend up to $151.37 for new rings and rebore — send 
your name and address on the coupon below for a 
free sample of this amazing mineral which expands 
up to 30 times when heated and full details of a real 
money-making opportunity. Air mail reaches us 
overnight. 



SAMPLE COUPON 



B, L. Melllnger. Pres., (Paste on Postcard and mail) 
Ovrhaul Co., G-918 Los Angeles. Calif. 

Without cost or obligation, rush me FREE SAM- 
PLE. Also show me your big money-making plan. 

Name 

Address 

City State 

Name and Make of Car 



MAIL THIS COUPON TODAY! 




BUSINESS GIRL— 193S MODEL— Office manager smiles. "Camels never upset my nerves." Later— to 

Olive Tucker keeps disarmingly calm despite the roof gym for a quick work-out. Shower —rub - 

nerve-nagging phones, buzzers, interviews. "If a Camel— and she's ofT again! Tired? Miss Tucker's 

anyone needs healthy nerves, I do." Miss Tucker answer: "Camels give my energy a refreshing 'lift.'". 



Cigarettes may look alike — 
but what art appealing Jif- 
ierence thefe is in Camels! 

You'll be interested to read 
what Miss Tucker, successful 
young office manager, sai.! to 
Miss MacGregor about the dif- 
ference between Camels and. 
other cigarettes (at right). 



"Olive, do you always serve 
Camels because you fe 
thai there's a bin difference 
between Camels and other 
cigarettes?" 





MISS TUCKER entertains thoughtfully! 
There are lots of Camels around. Miss 
Tucker says: "Camels are the favorite 
with my guests and are delightful for 
topping off a meal. During and after 
dining, I smoke Camels 'for digestion's 
sake.' Camels set me right!" 



"I'm very glad you've | 
brought that question up, 
Helen. I've tried as many 
kinds of cigarettes as most 
people, I guess, and I'm 
amazed at how different 
Camels are. Camels are 
extra-mild — they never 
bother my throat. And Cam- 
els taste good, yet never 
leave that 'cigaretty' after- 
taste. In so many ways, * 
Camels agree with me." 



A matchless blend of finer, MORE EXPEN- 
SIVE TOBACCOS— Turkish and Domestic 



PEOPLE DO APPRECIATE THE COSTLIER TOBACCOS IN CAMUS 



THET ARE THE LARGEST-SELLING CIGARETTE IN AMERICA , 



ONE SMOKER ^ 
TELLS ANOTHER 



CAMELS AGREE WITH ME'!* 



r